Sorry to crush some bubbles here, but Keith Richards has stated that he never wrote lyrics about recreational drug use. People seem to want to interpret all their songs as something about heroin. In fact the only times they did sing about drugs were about abuse (ref: Sister Morphine, Mother's Little Helper).
It was largely Vietnam that inspired this song according to interviews with Richards and Jagger, but also took into account some natural disasters happening worldwide at the time.
Sorry to crush some bubbles here, but Keith Richards has stated that he never wrote lyrics about recreational drug use. People seem to want to interpret all their songs as something about heroin. In fact the only times they did sing about drugs were about abuse (ref: Sister Morphine, Mother's Little Helper).
It was largely Vietnam that inspired this song according to interviews with Richards and Jagger, but also took into account some natural disasters happening worldwide at the time.