Grateful Dead had taken up residence the year before) was raided after a police tip-off. Grateful Dead members Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan were apprehended on marijuana charges which were later dropped, although Garcia himself was not arrested. The following year, Garcia's picture was used in a defamatory context in a campaign commercial for Richard Nixon. Most of the band were arrested again in January 1970, after they flew to New Orleans from Hawaii. After returning to their hotel from a performance, the band checked into their rooms, only to be quickly raided by police. Approximately fifteen people were arrested on the spot, including many of the road crew, management, and nearly all of the Grateful Dead except for Garcia, who arrived later, outgoing keyboardist Tom Constanten, who abstained from all drugs as a member of the Church of Scientology, and McKernan, who eschewed illegal drugs in favor of alcohol. According to Bill Kreutzmann, the band's use of cocaine accelerated throughout the early 1970s. After using heroin in a brothel in 1974 (likely on the band's second European tour), Garcia was introduced to a smokeable form of the drug (initially advertised as refined opium) colloquially known as "Persian" or "Persian Base" during the group's 1975 hiatus. Influenced by the stresses of creating and releasing The Grateful Dead Movie and the acrimonious collapse of the band's independent record labels over the next two years, Garcia became increasingly dependent upon both substances. These factors, combined with the alcohol and drug abuse of several other members of the Grateful Dead, resulted in a turbulent atmosphere. By 1978, the band's chemistry began "cracking and crumbling", resulting in poor group cohesion. As a result, Keith and Donna Jean Godchaux left the band in February 1979. With the addition of keyboardist/vocalist Brent Mydland that year amid the ongoing coalescence of the Deadhead subculture, the band reached new commercial heights as a touring group on the American arena circuit in the early 1980s, enabling them to forsake studio recording for several years. Nevertheless, this was offset by such factors as the band's atypically large payroll and Garcia's $700-a-day () drug addiction, resulting in the guitarist taking on a frenetic slate of solo touring outside of the Grateful Dead's rigorous schedule, including abbreviated acoustic duo concerts with Jerry Garcia Band bassist John Kahn that were widely rumored to be a funding conduit for their respective