Like a “candle in the wind,” Elton John extinguished the contemporary positive chatter surrounding marijuana legalization in an interview with Time Magazine published last week. He claimed efforts to legalize the drug were a huge societal error. Apparently, he finally realized what anti-weed proponents have known for quite some time: Marijuana is harmful. 

“I maintain that it’s addictive. It leads to other drugs,” said Time Magazine’s “Icon of the Year” for 2024. “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’s epiphany on marijuana represents, shall we say, the “circle of life” of many marijuana legalization proponents. First, they use the drug. Then, they support legalizing the drug. Then, after enough harmful things have occurred as a result of using the drug, they realize marijuana was terrible all along. Then, they acknowledge it should have never been legalized. 

But while many marijuana enthusiasts might tell the rock and roll Hall of Famer to “don’t go breaking my heart,” they should heed his advice. Despite its rebranding in pop culture as a kind of benevolent drug, studies have found that the regular use of marijuana has been linked to many harmful health conditions. One of the first was published shortly after Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize the recreational use of cannabis in 2012. 

Consider this study by Northwestern Medicine in 2013, which found a link between regular marijuana use by adolescents and “abnormal changes in their brain structures related to working memory and performed poorly on memory tasks.” Moreover, damage to the brain includes memory-related structures that “appeared to shrink and collapse inward,” with a possible decrease in brain neurons, according to the study. Additionally, these abnormalities became synonymous with “schizophrenia-related brain abnormalities.”

In 2023, Northwestern Medicine released another study about the dangerous effects of marijuana use. This research found that “recent and long-term marijuana use” is linked to “changes in the human epigenome.” Epigenetics analyzes the effects of behavior and the environment on human genes.

“The observed marijuana markers were also associated with cell proliferation, infection, and psychiatric disorders,” said Lifang Hou, MD, PhD, one of the researchers of the study.

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Other studies have found that marijuana has been linked to an increase in mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and suicide ideation. Still, other studies have found that marijuana has been connected to a decrease in IQ and an increased risk for “heart attacks and strokes.” Another study discovered that marijuana use was linked to “psychotic disorders,” “poorer mental health outcomes including increased risk of mood disorders, self-harm and suicidality,” and “associated with approximately 12 and 15 excess life-years lost in women and men.”

There are many more negatives associated with using marijuana than positives. Polluting the body with marijuana leads to many dangerous health matters that could otherwise be avoided. And, even though one can use the drug, avoid the pitfalls associated with it, and say to people, “I’m Still Standing,” it would be wiser to listen to Elton John and realize using marijuana is a mistake.