Rush Limbaugh Arrested On Drug Charges
West Palm Beach, Florida 05.28.06
Prosecutors' three-year investigation of Mr.Limbaugh of "doctor shopping," or illegally deceiving multiple doctors to receive overlapping prescriptions, after learning that he received about 2,000 Oxycontin painkillers ( that works out to 11 pills a day), prescribed by four doctors in six months at a pharmacy near his Palm Beach Mansion. Mr. Limbaugh stated his addiction to painkillers resulted from several years of severe back pain heightened by a botched surgery intended to correct those problems. (This will sound familiar later)
People like Limbaugh should go to jail, says Limbaugh.
"There's nothing good about drug use. We know it. It destroys individuals. It destroys families. Drug use destroys societies. Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods, which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up."
"What this says to me is that too many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we're not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too."
..We are becoming too tolerant as a society, folks, especially of crime, in too many parts of the country.... This country certainly appears to be tolerant, forgive and forget. I mean, you know as well as I do, you go out and commit the worst murder in the world and you just say you're sorry, people go, "Oh, OK. A little contrition."... People say, "I feel better. He said he's sorry for it." We're becoming too tolerant, folks. "
--Rush Limbaugh TV show (10/5/95)
"I want to let you read along with me a quote from Jerry Colangelo about substance abuse, and I think you'll find that he's very much right…"I know every expert in the world will disagree with me, but I don't buy into the disease part of it. The first time you reach for a substance you are making a choice. Every time you go back, you are making a personal choice. I feel very strongly about that."...
-Rush Limbaugh TV show (9/23/93)
"Rush is a great American. I am confident he can overcome any obstacles he faces right now,” George W. Bush
Was quoted in the Washington Post as telling his staff the other day after Limbaugh’s racist comments on ESPN and the first revelations that Rush was an illegal drug user.
Under the terms of the deal with prosecutors called a pretrial diversion, Limbaugh entered a not guilty plea to the charge, spokesman Tony Knight said. “It was all a formality. It’s a concluded deal.”
The radio giant has maintained his innocence throughout the investigation (though he had publicly announced that he was addicted to pain killers).
Under the deal, Mr. Limbaugh also agreed to pay the state $30,000 (.0009 % of his stated yearly salary) to defray the public cost of the investigation and must pay $30 per month for the cost of supervision, during which time he will continue regular drug tests.
Mr. Limbaugh was cleared of the charge. (Are you surprised?)
The second Floridian is Richard Paey, serving a 25-year sentence in Florida, was convicted in 2005 of drug trafficking for possessing a large quantity of prescription narcotics. He says he needed the medicine to alleviate the excruciating pain caused by a car crash and subsequent botched back surgery. (Remember, Mr. Limbaugh used this defense also.)
But Florida officials say he was purchasing too much of the drug for personal use. In an interview, Paey's wife, Linda, said three months of police surveillance revealed no evidence that Paey was selling drugs, but police were able to charge him with drug trafficking anyway, under Florida laws that don't require evidence of actual sale.
When the Paey’s moved to Florida in 1994 because Richards father was dying of cancer there, Linda Paey said her husband found it increasingly difficult to get the medicine he needed. Doctors feared being charged with a crime if they prescribed enough to alleviate his suffering, she said.
"They assumed that ... he was taking too many medicines for one person to take," Linda Paey said. "They thought that he had to be selling."
Paey was arrested in 1997. It took three trials and seven years to convict him of drug trafficking. The first trial ended in a mistrial; the second resulted in a conviction that was thrown out on a legal technicality, and a third produced guilty verdicts on 15 charges of drug trafficking, obtaining a controlled substance by fraud, and possession of a controlled substance. Paey was sentenced to the mandatory minimum of 25 years in prison in 2004.
Paey was granted a full pardon by Governor Charlie Crist in September of 2007."(See, not all Republicans are rotten Oranges)
"The drug war has gotten so fierce that doctors are afraid (to prescribe properly) and then they drive patients to do crazy things," she said. "How do we, as taxpayers and citizens, justify police around things that should be a public health issue, not a criminal issue?"
Then there is former Florida Governor Jeb Bush's daughter, Noelle, whose addictions to prescription drugs and arrests have been highly publicized but have not earned her lengthy prison terms.
WTF kind of double standard is this? Regular folks suffering in pain get persicuted while the powerful get their wrist slapped is what kind it is. Yet you put up with their crap while you or your loved ones suffer!
A personal note:
When my father was dying from brain cancer, a very painful way to die, the nurse would not increase his Moraphine dose even though she could see he was in pain.
The reason given? "It might cause constipation."
He died two days later.
Steve
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