I like Elton John. I’ve grown up on and loved his music, and I thought it was just great that he played at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding. Now, I like him even more for stating the truth about marijuana: It’s a dreadful drug.

John, who had a notorious drug addiction during the 1970s and 1980s but has been clean and sober for decades, made that statement in a Time Magazine interview:

John now divides his life into pre- and post-sober periods. He has helped many people kick drugs and has offered to help many more. He is Eminem’s sponsor. He orchestrated English pop star Robbie Williams’ first stint in rehab. He tried, without success, to help George Michael. “It’s tough to tell someone that they’re being an a--hole, and it’s tough to hear,” he says. “Eventually I made the choice to admit that I’m being an a--hole.” Those struggles have made him doubt the wisdom of legal weed. “I maintain that it’s addictive. It leads to other drugs. And when you’re stoned—and I’ve been stoned—you don’t think normally,” he says. “Legalizing marijuana in America and Canada is one of the greatest mistakes of all time.”

John couldn’t be more right.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, when the “squares” said that marijuana was a gateway drug to harder drugs, they too were right. Additionally, as Alex Berenson has written, marijuana leads to violence and insanity.

Image by Grok AI.

Of course, most people who use marijuana don’t become violent or insane, although some do become violently ill. The linked essay says “cannabis hyperemesis syndrome” is a rare condition, but I know several people who suffered from it.

What marijuana really does, though, is make people inert. For every Lee Child or Louis Armstrong, there are probably tens of thousands of people who do not become more creative or dynamic under its influence; they simply become useless lumps. (As another aside, the marijuana available during Armstrong’s lifetime was significantly less potent than today’s marijuana.)

We’ve long known that marijuana use damages the brain, especially young brains. The CDC sums up what pot does to people’s brains (endnotes omitted):

Cannabis affects brain development. Developing brains, such as those in babies, children, and teenagers, are especially susceptible to the harmful effects of cannabis and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) because the brain is continuing to develop until around age 25. Although scientists are still learning about the effects of cannabis on developing brains, studies suggest that cannabis use by mothers during pregnancy could be linked to problems with attention, memory, problem-solving skills, and behavior in their children.

Using cannabis before age 18 may affect how the brain builds connections for functions like attention, memory, and learning. Cannabis's effects on attention, memory, and learning may last a long time or even be permanent, but more research is needed to fully understand these effects.

Youth who use cannabis may not do as well in school and may have trouble remembering things.

I wouldn’t be surprised if pot doesn’t also affect hormone production in teens, helping to lead to the increase in gender confusion. I have no proof for this statement, but I just feel it’s worth investigating.

A friend of mine started using pot in her teens, and all the people in her world are pot users. They are people with innate talents (my friend was a gifted mathematician), but pot use has assured that they all scrabble along at the very bottom of society.

They’re dullards, incapable of professional accomplishments, even if they can hold jobs, and their interpersonal skills are disastrously bad as they cycle between waxing and waning marijuana loads. Several of her friends had more serious drug problems, all of which started with pot use. Only those who have cleaned up their acts entirely are crawling out of the pot abyss.

It says something that even as we have more evidence of how disastrously bad marijuana is for people, more and more states are legalizing it. This suggests that these states want a sedated citizenry. It’s not religion that is the opiate of the people; it’s state-sanctioned opiates that are the opiate of the people. While religion raises people up, opiates cast them down.

Currently, 24 states have legalized recreational marijuana: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington. And no, you’re not imagining that the bulk of those states are Democrat-majority states.

I can also say with confidence that even states that haven’t officially legalized marijuana have often unofficially legalized it. That is, while marijuana use and possession are still state-level criminal offenses, law enforcement ignores these things, and people carry and smoke pot with impunity. And of course, the federal government does nothing at all, even though marijuana is still completely illegal under federal law.

Perhaps we could get away with this libertarian approach to law enforcement if we had a culture that frowned upon marijuana use. However, that’s not the case. Hollywood has been promoting it for years. And while I have come to respect both Elon Musk and Joe Rogan, I still resent their puffing on pot on Rogan’s show. The result of all this cultural pot promotion is that while young people have absorbed the lesson that cigarette smoking is bad, they mistakenly believe that pot is harmless.

With that in mind, you can see why I think it’s simply awesome that Elton John had the courage to speak out against the marijuana culture that the West has developed. It’s a terrible thing at both an individual and national level, and I can’t think of a better or more admired spokesman to make that point.