Butterfly on a Wheel: The Great Rolling Stones Drugs Bust

Book excerpt: Four pep pills, a Sunday tabloid, two celebrated rock stars and a court case. Butterfly on a Wheel: The Rolling Stones Great Drugs Bust documents how these ingredients came to form a huge slice of British social history; a watershed where attitudes to drugs prompted a seismic change in popular culture. When Keith Richards threw a drug-fuelled party at his West Sussex house in early 1967, it was never going to be an uneventful affair. The police broke in, dragged Keith Richards and Mick Jagger away in handcuffs, and a media frenzy erupted which pitted the hedonistic counterculture against the British Establishment. Using previously unpublished police and court documents, best-selling author Simon Wells reveals what really happened on the night of the raid and the extraordinary conspiracy mounted to end the careers of Jagger and Richards, with The Beatles soon to follow. Using fresh interviews with lawyers, police and eye witnesses to the notorious party, Wells reveals the truth about the celebrity pushers, London gangsters, bent cops, corrupt newspapers and dodgy politicians. This Omnibus enhanced edition includes an online media collection of television news footage, newspaper reports, interviews with Jagger, Richards and McCartney, as well as an interview with the author.