How Keith Richards escaped a mammoth drug bust with a $162 ticket
It’s really a miracle that Keith Richards is still alive, let alone walking free. Within The Rolling Stones, the guitarist wasn’t just their resident riff master but was their true wild child. Maybe that’s even a bit kind – Richards was the band’s biggest liability, bringing drug busts, several near-death experiences and countless other crazy happenings along with him. But somehow, he always came out unscathed or with a mere fine.
There is an entire volume of rock and roll’s annals in history dedicated to all the times Keith Richards cheated death. With at least seven entries, ranging from gang threats to world wars and including more than one accidental fire, it’s as if the universe has a kind of force field around the guitarist, keeping him safe even though the man himself is as reckless as they come. Especially in the 1970s, the guitarist, who was a full-blown addict at this point, was defying both law and nature to get his fix.
But the most incredible thing about it is that not only did Richards survive those days, still alive and rocking today, but he usually got off pretty much scott-free. In 1967, the band were the target of a major drug bust at the guitarist’s Redlands Estate. Currently tripping on acid at the time it happened, Richards, Mick Jagger and his then-girlfriend Marianne Faithfull were all busted. There was the genuine question as to whether they’d face jail time, but instead, they got off with one night in the slammer and a hefty fine. That’s how the story usually went for the band, as they were often caught but rarely punished beyond a few hundred quid as the mystique of the rockstar protected them.
In 1975, though, that protective energy levelled up. It was no longer just the privilege of being a celebrity that protected Richards but some genuine Hollywood crime film energy, as he somehow managed to avoid a major drug bust by a narrow margin.
It was during the band’s 1975 US tour. After a rough plane ride, Richards and Ronnie Wood decided to drive to their next stop instead, renting a car and using their day off to make the journey from Memphis to Dallas. So they piled into a Chevy along with Rolling Stones security chief Jim Callaghan and, crucially, their drug hookup, Freddie Sessler.
Whether presently intoxicated or on a rough comedown, it was not Richards’ finest driving. “Keith was driving very, very slow — slow enough to get arrested for loitering — and swerving a bit too much from lane to lane,” Wood recalled in his autobiography. It was bad enough that somewhere along the way, in Arkansas, they were pulled over.
“A patrol car suddenly appeared next to us, the cops motioned for us to pull over (Keith’s driving meant we were pretty much already stopped), and suddenly, the two cops from the patrol car were standing in front of us with guns drawn,” Wood remembered of the scene.
All the passengers were detained while their car was searched. Eventually, Richards was hit with a $162.50 ticket for reckless driving, and they were back on their way. But no doubt, when they hit the road again, the band were laughing all the way to Dallas as hidden away in the car, in a hollow space behind some panelling in the door, was a huge space of cocaine and marijuana. Like something out of a crime film or a Hunter S Thompson story, Richards and his cohort avoided a major drug bust, all because of the cop’s lacklustre searching and the distraction of the guitarist’s poor driving.
