Paul McCartney Said He Was ‘Lucky’ He Never Used Heroin

Paul McCartney said many of his contemporaries used heroin, but he feels grateful that he never did. Throughout the 1960s, many musicians experimented with drugs. The Beatles were no different, writing whole albums inspired by their marijuana and LSD use. McCartney knew people who used heroin, including his own bandmate, but he never tried the drug. Looking back, he said he feels relieved he never used it.

A black and white picture of Paul McCartney in a recording studio. — Paul McCartney | Frank Tewkesbury/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Paul McCartney said he learned about heroin through The Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones

One of the first people McCartney knew who used heroin was The Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones.

“Brian was a nervous guy, very shy, quite serious and maybe into drugs a little more than he should have been, because he used to shake a bit,” McCartney said in The Beatles Anthology. “He was lovely, though. We knew he was on heroin. I knew about heroin but I couldn’t have been very clear about it because I remember asking Robert Fraser about it.”

Brian Jones | Keystone/Getty Images

Fraser was an art dealer who The Beatles got to know well. When McCartney asked him about heroin, he wrote it off as no big deal.

“I think it was he who said to me, ‘Heroin’s no problem as long as you can afford it. There are millions of addicts, man,’ and for a second I almost thought that might just be true,” McCartney said. “But thank goodness something said to me, ‘No, that doesn’t sound right,’ so I didn’t get into it. I was lucky.”

Paul McCartney has been arrested for drugs multiple times

McCartney, John Lennon, and George Harrison were all arrested for drugs, but McCartney was arrested more than any of his bandmates. In 1972, after the band broke up, he was arrested for the first time for possession of cannabis in Sweden.

He later got in trouble for growing marijuana on his farm in Scotland. As with his arrest in Sweden, he got off with just a fine.

On a trip to Japan, though, McCartney landed himself in more severe trouble. Officials discovered half a pound of marijuana in his bag at the airport, enough to potentially land him smuggling charges. McCartney spent nine days in jail but believes his celebrity got him out of the situation.

While McCartney acknowledged that his arrest in Japan was “stupid,” he landed in legal trouble again in 1984. On a trip to Barbados, police arrested him and his wife, Linda, for possession of cannabis.

Paul McCartney’s bandmate John Lennon used heroin throughout the 1960s

McCartney never used heroin, but his Beatles bandmate Lennon did. Toward the end of the 1960s, Lennon began experimenting with the drug.

“The two of them were on heroin,” McCartney said of Lennon and Yoko Ono, via Salon, “and this was a fairly big shocker for us because we all thought we were far-out boys, but we kind of understood that we’d never get quite that far out.”

Lennon and Ono said they quit the drug cold turkey in 1969, an experience that Lennon wrote a song about.

How to get help: In the U.S., contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration helpline at 1-800-662-4357.

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