This Is Keith Richards' Favorite Drug

If you have the money to spend and you want a fine wine, you go to a respected sommelier. Looking for the apex of vehicular reliability? You might ask a renowned engineer, mechanic, or one of those Top Gear guys. When one lives on the periphery of excellence, one owes it to oneself to take advice only from the highest authorities. And no authority has ever been higher than Keith Richards, the acclaimed guitarist and songsmith for the Rolling Stones who once, according to Forbes, filled his amplifiers with cocaine so he'd never run low on the road. 

Richards' reputation as rock and roll's least discerning set of veins and mucous membranes is perhaps overshadowed only by his startling longevity: he is 76 years old, as this is being written, or roughly 183 in heroin years. With that much experience under his belt and that much belt over his arm, you'd imagine that Richards would have developed a connoisseur's taste in mind altering substances. Which one is his favorite?

You can get satisfaction, it's just very expensive

These days? None of them. In an interview with the Telegraph, Richards stated "Drugs are not interesting these days. They are very institutionalized and bland. And anyway, I've done 'em all." Hear that, kids? Keith Richards says drugs are for squares. Stay in school.

As was alluded to earlier, Richards was a big fan of cocaine. More specifically, the pharmaceutical variety, colloquially known as Merck cocaine, thanks to its ties to the drug company of the same name. The guitarist has described the Rolling Stones' 1975 tour as "fueled by Merck," claiming to have done a bump between songs any time he was on stage.

However, with most of that tripping in the past — Keith Richards claimed to be more or less down to "a glass of wine occasionally" in 2018, according to Mercury News — Keith Richards has sung a familiar refrain as to which drug is the hardest to kick. He's stated that quitting cigarettes is harder than getting off of heroin, though it was reported by CNN in February of 2020 that he was trying to quit smoking for good in preparation for the band's world tour.