ONE OF THE most significant Rolling Stones arrests happened in Toronto on February 27, 1977. It must be acknowledged that this incident really did represent the possibility of the end of the Stones. Keith was found with twenty-two grams of heroin, a large enough amount that he was initially charged with “possession of heroin for the purpose of trafficking.”
The tabloid story got kicked to another level when the Canadian prime minister’s young wife, Margaret Trudeau, was seen both at a Stones show at the El Mocambo and also partying with the band after. The press assumed she was having an affair with Mick, though Ron Wood implies he was the man cuckolding the PM in his book. Of course, knowing the Stones, it could have been both.
EDDIE KRAMER: There was a lot of political bullshit going on—as you can imagine—with Margaret Trudeau and Mick Jagger. Whether or not that actually happened I don’t know. Certainly she was there that night. She introduced herself to me in the club. “I’m Margaret Trudeau. Who are you?”
KEITH RICHARDS: Maybe it’s not bad Margaret Trudeau was involved because it took it out to a completely different level. Instead of everything just being centered on me and the Stones, it involved the prime minister of the fucking country . . . (laughs). The things they were fishing for: Was Margaret Trudeau fed up? Was she going to leave her husband to run off with a rock ’n’ roll band? That’s what they were really trying to get around, but the way Pierre [Trudeau] handled it made more out of less, unfortunately. Obviously he didn’t know what was going on, because if he did he would have tried to cool things out.
The threat of a seven-year prison term haunted Keith for more than a year. He was allowed to leave Canada to enter treatment at a clinic near Philadelphia, where he cleaned up—or at least tried to. According to his memoir Life, Keith was on heroin during the Some Girls sessions in France and even once shot up in the bathroom on a plane from New York to Toronto, with a Mountie’s spurs clinking outside the door!
Keith was overwhelmed by the support he received from Stones fans throughout his troubles in Toronto.
A court sketch from October 23, 1978, by Laurie McGaw that appeared in the Toronto Star
KEITH RICHARDS: I know lots and lots of people dig the Stones but frankly, I was knocked out by the personal care and attention that people were paying just to me. I’d just like them to know that everything’s fine and don’t expect any major fractures in the future. I think we can keep it all together. And I hope we can get round their way soon. I like to be able to play everywhere once a year if it’s possible. Sometimes by the time we get back to America it’s three years. But this year, once we do this album and that’s in the can, then we’re on the road.
After multiple delays, Keith’s trial was finally heard on October 23, 1978. Keith pleaded guilty to possession but not guilty to trafficking. The judge found him guilty but said, “I will not incarcerate him for addiction and wealth.”
Keith was sentenced to just one-year probation. There were two conditions. One was that Keith was ordered to continue treatment for heroin addiction (which he clearly needed to do anyway). The other (of course!) was that he must perform a benefit performance for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.
KEITH RICHARDS: This was to do with a blind girl who had followed the Stones everywhere on the road. Rita, my blind angel. Despite her blindness, she hitchhiked to our shows. The chick was absolutely fearless, I’d heard about her backstage, and the idea of her thumbing in the darkness was too much for me. I hooked her up with the truck drivers, made sure she got a safe lift, and made sure she got fed. And when I was busted, she actually found her way to the judge’s house and told him this story.
WE PISS ANYWHERE, MAN
Ironically, considering Keith’s reputation as an outlaw, Bill Wyman was the first Stone to be arrested, in 1963.
BILL WYMAN: We were coming back from a gig and I wanted to have a wee-wee, so we stopped at a garage—and they refused to let me so I went back to the car and Mick said, “Come on, Bill, we’ll find one” and Brian Jones as well. So the three of us went over there and they still wouldn’t let us use it, so we just did it there and got arrested. And we had to pay about twenty pounds, which was about thirty dollars then. We got publicity for about a year on that one. It was then we realized what we had to do to get publicity, you see.
Keith was free. And he finally beat his heroin addiction not long after that. Mick Jagger offers his perspective on the idea that the Stones became identified with drug use in the ’70s.
MICK JAGGER: Yeah, I think it’s very bad. I don’t remember ever proselytizing for it myself. But I think it became a tremendous bore to everyone in the Rolling Stones who ever got either arrested or involved with drugs. So it was tremendously regrettable—especially the damage it did by persuading people how glamorous it all was. You might get different answers from different people in the band, but if I remember right, it was not the intention of the Rolling Stones to become drug-user outlaws. It was a real drawback as far as creativity went. And it went on until 1977, with Keith’s bust in Toronto. All those things affected the band and gave us this image of being like a real bunch of outlaw dope fiends—which was to a certain extent, I suppose, true. But it was also imposed, somewhat. Because I think the original intent was just to do what one did and not make an issue of it.