Richards admits using toy syringes to inject drugs

Reuters

DESPERATE MEASURES: Keith Richards resorted to using syringes from a children's nurses kit to support his drug habit.

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Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has admitted using syringes bought from a children's toy shop to inject heroin.

The legend - who recently revealed he still smokes marijuana "all the time" - found it difficult to transport his syringe kit to America, so relied on the children's nurses kit from New York's FAO Schwarz.

He said: "Back then you had to put all the bits together. I was staying in the Plaza once in New York - I would fly with a needle and just put it in my hat to fix the feather. I wasn't going to fly with syringes. So the minute I got the shit, well, now I need the syringe, right?

"My trick was, I'd order up a cup of coffee because I need a spoon, right?

"FAO Schwarz was right across the street. And then, if you went to the third floor, you could buy this children's doctors and nurses set that had the barrel and the syringe that fitted onto the needle that I'd bought."

Keith, 64, said he stopped snorting cocaine after falling out of a tree in Fiji in 2006 and sustaining a serious head injury.

He added to Britain's Esquire magazine: "I've definitely found myself sleeping better since the bang on the head. I had to give up the cocaine.

"How do you think you stay up for so many days? By the time the accident happened, it was really just once after meals anyway.

"Thank God I've got a reason to give it up!"