How Keith Richards Beat a Heroin Bust With a Blues Concert

In February 1977, Canadian Mounties pulled over Keith Richards’ car in Toronto and found 22 grams of heroin, five grams of cocaine, and a loaded handgun. The bust was enormous by any measure—enough heroin to be charged with trafficking, a crime that carried a possible life sentence in Canada. The Rolling Stones were in the middle of negotiating a new record deal and planning a world tour; a superstar guitarist facing serious prison time could have pulled the whole operation apart.

Richards’ legal team struck a remarkable deal. In October 1978, a Toronto judge accepted a plea: Richards would avoid a criminal record and jail by promising to “continue his musical career” and to perform a benefit concert for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. That show—held in Oshawa, Ontario, on a snowy night in April 1979—was a loose, rambling set with the Stones and guest musicians. It wasn’t exactly a grand gesture, but it satisfied the court. The whole thing felt like a rock-and-roll loophole: a serious drug charge resolved by a blues jam.

The case didn’t just keep Richards free—it also forced him to get clean. During the year he was awaiting trial, he kicked heroin, using methadone and sheer will. The bust became the last big wake-up call for the band’s heaviest drug years. By the time they recorded Some Girls in 1978, Richards was off the needle and the Stones were able to continue without their lead guitarist behind bars.