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I agree with you. This whole "doctor shopping" thing is ridiculous but it is the system at fault. It would appear that he did commit a crime by asking others to obtain prescription medication for him, but it should NOT EVER HAVE BEEN a crime for him to take prescription pain medication in any dose his doctor prescribed (or, imho, in any dose without a doctor's scrip).

There are real problems in this case. The problem #1 stems from the fact that he was in pain and took pain medicine precribed by a doctor. But as anyone in severe long term pain will tell you, this leads to problem #2 which is that longer you take these medicines the more you will need to dull the pain. You gain a tolerance. That leads to problem #3 which is that doctors are loathe to prescribe even low doses of narcotics for fear of going to jail and/or losing their licenses. 2000 pills over 6 months seems like a lot to you and me, but in reality it is apx 2-3 tablets every 4 hours for a 6 month period. It is considered a lot, as usually you get 1 for every 4 hour period, but that is for short term use. The longer you take them the more you need for them to work and after months or years, with tolerance, 2-3 pills becomes the effective dose. But NO DOCTOR and NO PHARMACY in the USA will prescribe you an amount of 3 tablets every 4 hours because of the FDA and DEA. So what is a person in severe long term pain to do?

Was he addicted? Probably. But so what? Nobody noticed. He did his job every day. The pills he took are a synthetic opiate, but in many people they do not make you drowsy (some do) they make you slightly euphoric. So perhaps he developed a dependency in addition to a tolerance, but I highly question whether 'dependency' with tolerance is really that much of a social problem that requires federal intervention. And, as a Libertarian style Republican, I don't see where the state has any business interfering in the relationship between Rush and his doctors and pharmacist. All of them will tell you exactly what I have written: The longer you take these meds, the higher dose you will need for them to be effective, and there is no way around it except to "abuse" other drugs in rotation, i.e. high doses of alcohol, then codeine, then hydrocodone, then oxycodone and cycle through them - which imho is no better or worse from a social standpoint than taking high doses of one. Rotating is a preferred method because it enables you to alleviate pain in different ways and keep tolerance down, but still it's a level of "abuse" any way you look at it, if you look at it as "abuse". However, the government will simply not allow you to exceed 120 narcotic pills per month and the only way to obtain more is is to "doctor shop" or get other people to get the prescriptions for you.

I have taken narcotic medicine, as have many people, but only for short periods of time i.e. 3-4 days. These are common pills given for post surgery pain, for severe dental pain, for migraines, broken bones, etc. But for intractable problems like back pain, nerve pain etc, what are you supposed to do? Live a life of pain and misery, or live in dependence but without pain? What would you do? I can tell you right now that I would sooner become a criminal than live in severe pain for the rest of my life. If I can work, play, and enjoy my life and have quality time with my family who cares if I take 3 pills every 4 hours?

I think this is royally bogus and that Rush got a bum rap.

I have written a lot but I have one more thing to say. It is true that, once dependent, trying to get off these pills is difficult. The body endorphins 'forget' how to deal with pain after long term use of narcotics and so even minor pain feels intensified when you stop taking them. With proper supervision, he could have slowly tapered off the pills to see whether the pain had gone into remission. The point here is that he needed pain management and continuous observation. But of course, once he crossed into the "criminality" of it, it became that much more difficult to manage because he could no longer be honest with his health care professionals about what he was doing. It's a tough spot to be in, and so the feds should have had mercy on him.

I say, we have many real social problems. Drug abuse can be a social problem, but only, imho, when drug abuse causes one to be dysfunctional. If drug abusers are able to be responsible, productive, and familial, there is no problem as far as I am concerned.