Fact #111954
When:
Short story:
Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones is arrested in Toronto, Ontario, Canada after police find $4,000 worth of heroin in his room. Soon after, his office calls in heroin treatment expert Dr Meg Patterson in an attempt to try to cure Richards.Full article:
Mick Jagger (vocalist, Rolling Stones) : How did I handle it? Oh, with difficulty. It's never easy. I don't find it easy dealing with people with drug problems. It helps if you're all taking drugs, all the same drugs. But anyone taking heroin is thinking about taking heroin more than they're thinking about anything else. That's the general rule about most drugs. If you're really on some heavily addictive drug, you think about the drug, and everything else is secondary. You try and make everything work, but the drug comes first.
I think that people taking drugs occasionally are great. I think there's nothing wrong with it. But if you do it the whole time, you don't produce as good things as you could. It sounds like a puritanical statement, but it's based on experience. You can produce many good things, but they take an awfully long time.
It's all they can do to turn up. And people have different personalities when they're drunk or take heroin, or whatever drugs. When Keith was taking heroin, it was very difficult to work. He still was creative, but it took a long time. And everyone else was taking drugs and drinking a tremendous amount, too. And it affected everyone in certain ways. But I've never really talked to Keith about this stuff. So I have no idea what he feels.
Dr. Meg Patterson (expert in treating heroin addiction) : I was not too surprised by the call, for I had already been approached on a few occasions by the Rolling Stones organisation about possible treatment for Keith, after I had treated Eric (Eric Clapton), but they had never followed through on the initial calls. This time the situation was drastically different.
Keith had been arrested in Canada, during a tour there, with a large amount of heroin in his room; consequently, instead of just being charged with possession, he was being held on the much more serious crime of drug trafficking, which could draw a sentence of twenty years imprisonment or more.
(Source : Dr. Meg, Word Books)
Dr. Meg Patterson (expert in treating heroin addiction) : When they (Richards and Anita Pallenberg) appeared in the (Philadelphia) airport reception area they were accompanied by their seven-year-old son, Marlon, who was almost as notorious as Keith for his behaviour - including taking drugs and alcohol in public.
Keith and Anita were floating somewhere on Cloud Nine with drugs, and Marlon was shouting and beating on them for attention. Keith, pale and haggard as always, was dressed in a white suit and
purple shirt, and he stood unsmiling beside an equally sullen Anita while Bill Carter (the Rolling Stones attorney), embarrassingly said that Keith had told him to send me and the doctors off, cancel the arrangements, and to prepare to leave for New York right away.
I took a deep breath, then slowly and clearly spelled it out to the red-faced lawyer: either they could get into the car right away and get on with the treatment as agreed, or we would immediately inform the authorities - and Keith and Anita would never see New York, as they would be on the plane back to Canada and prison. They might as well learn right now that I was in charge, and that they would have to do exactly as I said, as I was here to cure their addictions, not to play silly games at the drug-induced whim of arrogant and temperamental celebrities.
The matter was settled
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I think that people taking drugs occasionally are great. I think there's nothing wrong with it. But if you do it the whole time, you don't produce as good things as you could. It sounds like a puritanical statement, but it's based on experience. You can produce many good things, but they take an awfully long time.
It's all they can do to turn up. And people have different personalities when they're drunk or take heroin, or whatever drugs. When Keith was taking heroin, it was very difficult to work. He still was creative, but it took a long time. And everyone else was taking drugs and drinking a tremendous amount, too. And it affected everyone in certain ways. But I've never really talked to Keith about this stuff. So I have no idea what he feels.
Dr. Meg Patterson (expert in treating heroin addiction) : I was not too surprised by the call, for I had already been approached on a few occasions by the Rolling Stones organisation about possible treatment for Keith, after I had treated Eric (Eric Clapton), but they had never followed through on the initial calls. This time the situation was drastically different.
Keith had been arrested in Canada, during a tour there, with a large amount of heroin in his room; consequently, instead of just being charged with possession, he was being held on the much more serious crime of drug trafficking, which could draw a sentence of twenty years imprisonment or more.
(Source : Dr. Meg, Word Books)
Dr. Meg Patterson (expert in treating heroin addiction) : When they (Richards and Anita Pallenberg) appeared in the (Philadelphia) airport reception area they were accompanied by their seven-year-old son, Marlon, who was almost as notorious as Keith for his behaviour - including taking drugs and alcohol in public.
Keith and Anita were floating somewhere on Cloud Nine with drugs, and Marlon was shouting and beating on them for attention. Keith, pale and haggard as always, was dressed in a white suit and
purple shirt, and he stood unsmiling beside an equally sullen Anita while Bill Carter (the Rolling Stones attorney), embarrassingly said that Keith had told him to send me and the doctors off, cancel the arrangements, and to prepare to leave for New York right away.
I took a deep breath, then slowly and clearly spelled it out to the red-faced lawyer: either they could get into the car right away and get on with the treatment as agreed, or we would immediately inform the authorities - and Keith and Anita would never see New York, as they would be on the plane back to Canada and prison. They might as well learn right now that I was in charge, and that they would have to do exactly as I said, as I was here to cure their addictions, not to play silly games at the drug-induced whim of arrogant and temperamental celebrities.
The matter was settled