In a sign that the times surely are changing, pop music icon Elton John came out against marijuana in a Time magazine interview. Once known as much for his excesses as for his music, the long-rehabbed star regrets not only his own overindulgence, but also legalization efforts that free users from the threat of arrest and imprisonment. While we can appreciate the difficulties of the performer's own journey, he makes two basic mistakes: he ignores the damage done by prohibition, and he overlooks our right to do what we please without state interference so long as we harm nobody else. Both are serious oversights.
You Make Terrible Decisions on Drugs
"I maintain that it's addictive. It leads to other drugs," 77-year-old Elton John commented about marijuana to Time's Belinda Luscombe during an interview naming him icon of the year. "And when you're stoned—and I've been stoned—you don't think normally. Legalizing marijuana in America and Canada is one of the greatest mistakes of all time."
John suffered through severe drug dependency, which he kicked in rehab, so his personal regrets are understandable. He says that after he started heavily using cocaine and other intoxicants, he belatedly discovered that "you make terrible decisions on drugs." Worse for the performer: Luscombe notes that "as John became increasingly dependent on drugs, the music got worse."
Those were excellent reasons for John to go into rehab and kick his dependencies, which he did decades ago. He's helped other performers, with various degrees of success, battle their own problems with intoxicants. But it's a leap from his personal problems to attacking reforms that reduce or eliminate legal threats against those who produce, buy, sell, and use marijuana. Whatever harms marijuana use may cause some people—and harm can to be found in excess consumption of anything—pale in comparison to the damage done by efforts to enforce prohibition against a resistant population.
War on Drugs Has Subjected Millions to Criminalization
"Since the declaration of the U.S. drug war, billions of dollars each year have been spent on drug enforcement and punishment because it was made a local, state, and federal priority," wrote Aliza Cohen, Sheila P. Vakharia, Julie Netherland, and Kassandra Frederique of the Drug Policy Alliance in a 2022 paper published in the Annals of Medicine. "For the past half century, the war on drugs has subjected millions to criminalisation, incarceration, and lifelong criminal records, disrupting or altogether eliminating access to adequate resources and supports to live healthy lives."
The authors note that "drug offences remain the leading cause of arrest in the nation; over 1.1 million drug-related arrests were made in 2020, and the majority were for personal possession alone." They add that "roughly 20% of people who are incarcerated are there for a drug charge." Racial disparities can be found in both arrests and incarceration, though nobody should be facing such perils.
Prohibition, they add, means drugs come in uncertain purity from unreliable suppliers because of the illegal nature of the business. "The most recent 'fourth wave' of the overdose crisis can be attributed to a fentanyl-contaminated drug supply caused by drug prohibition," as illegality drives buyers to black market sources.
Some of the victims of the war on drugs had problems comparable to those of Elton John in terms of dependency and impaired decision-making. It's difficult to believe that pursuits by police, arrest, and imprisonment improved their lot. Others were casual users who were certainly harmed by the intrusion of the criminal justice system into their lives. All suffer from the lingering effects of criminal records that make it difficult to find jobs, gain occupational licenses in our overregulated society, and even get access to housing when subjected to background checks.
Prohibition Breeds Corruption and Violence
In 2017, the Cato Institute's Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail R. Hall reached similar conclusions. They concluded that "the domestic War on Drugs has contributed to an increase in drug overdoses and fostered and sustained the creation of powerful drug cartels" that profit from the illegal trade and inflict corruption and violence on the societies around them. "Internationally, we find that prohibition not only fails in its own right, but also actively undermines the goals of the Global War on Terror."
They added that "prohibition may increase the benefits of using violence. By gaining a reputation for using violence, those involved in the drug trade may exert more effective control over the market." Also, their participation in the illegal drug trade enriches both criminal cartels and terrorist organizations. In Afghanistan, for instance, "the Taliban…developed a cartel over the country's opium production."
All of this indicates that use of drugs overall might harm some people who overindulge, but prohibition damages whole societies. And both the Annals of Medicine and Cato papers addressed the problem inherent in prohibiting any drugs. Elton John voiced regret over the legalization of marijuana, generally acknowledged to be the most benign of those drugs that have historically been banned.
Just as important as these practical issues, though, are the moral ones. For libertarians, the principle of personal freedom is a clear and obvious one. We have the right to create, buy, sell, and use whatever we please, and to engage in consensual dealing with other adults, even if the outcomes might hurt us.
Power Can Be Rightfully Exercised Only To Prevent Harm to Others
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others," John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty. "His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right." Referring to efforts to, among other things, ban the import of opium into China, he wrote, "these interferences are objectionable, not as infringements on the liberty of the producer or seller, but on that of the buyer."
In truth, they sound like infringements on the liberty of the seller and producer, too, in their efforts to seek consensual dealings with buyers.
Prohibitionists argue that drug users harm society through lowered productivity, poor decision-making, and dependency. But that implies that we have an obligation to society to always be at our high-functioning best. It also ignores the "harm" done by a host of other things, including being unmotivated.
Then there's the damage done by prohibition itself: violence, corruption, and ruined lives. Even those who reject our right to live free must address the dangers inherent in prohibition.
Elton John is a remarkable performer who has defeated some personal demons and helped others do the same. He certainly has advice to offer when it comes to drug use and the damage it can do. But he needs to give more thought to the lives ruined and societies wrecked by trying to make people give up marijuana and other drugs by force.
