Source Confirms Limbaugh Investigation

AP News ^ | 10/11/03 | JILL BARTON

[harpu]

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh stunned listeners of his nationwide radio show by announcing on the air that he's hooked on painkillers and is checking himself into rehab.

Law enforcement sources who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed to The Associated Press that Limbaugh was being investigated for by the Palm Beach County, Fla., state attorney's office.

"Immediately following this broadcast, I am checking myself into a treatment center for the next 30 days to once and for all break the hold this highly addictive medication has on me," he said Friday.

"You know I have always tried to be honest with you and open about my life," Limbaugh said. "So I need to tell you today that part of what you have heard and read is correct. I am addicted to prescription pain medication."

Attempts to reach Limbaugh by phone, e-mail, fax and at his Florida home were unsuccessful Friday.

In the past, Limbaugh has decried drug use and abuse on his bluntly conservative show, mocking President Bill Clinton for not inhaling and often making the case that drug crimes deserve punishment.

"Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. ... 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," Limbaugh said on his short-lived television show on Oct. 5, 1995.

During the same show, he commented that the statistics that show blacks go to prison more often than whites for the same drug offenses only illustrate that "too many whites are getting away with drug use."

Limbaugh gave up his job as an ESPN sports analyst Oct. 1, three days after saying on the sports network's "Sunday NFL Countdown" that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed.

The reports of possible drug abuse surfaced at about the same time, first in the National Enquirer. The tabloid had interviewed Wilma Cline, who said she became Limbaugh's drug connection after working as his maid. She said Limbaugh had abused OxyContin and other painkillers.

Mike Edmondson, a spokesman for the Palm Beach County state attorney's office, said Friday his office could neither confirm nor deny that an investigation was under way. Limbaugh's attorney, Roy Black, did not return a message seeking comment.

Limbaugh said he started taking painkillers "some years ago" after a doctor prescribed them following a spinal surgery. His back pain stemming from the surgery persisted, so Limbaugh said he started taking pills and became hooked.

"Over the past several years I have tried to break my dependence on pain pills and, in fact, twice checked myself into medical facilities in an attempt to do so. I have recently agreed with my physician about the next steps."

A spokesman for Premiere Radio Networks, which syndicates the politically focused "Rush Limbaugh Show" to more than 650 markets, declined to elaborate on Limbaugh's previous treatment.

OxyContin is a narcotic painkiller that is widely prescribed for victims of moderate to severe chronic pain resulting from such problems as arthritis, back trouble and cancer.

Limbaugh reported two years ago that he had lost most of his hearing because of an autoimmune inner-ear disease. He had surgery to have an electronic device placed in his skull to restore his hearing.

Research has found that abuse of opiate-based painkillers like OxyContin can lead to profound hearing loss caused by damage to the inner ear, said Dr. Gail Ishiyama, an assistant professor at the UCLA department of neurology. She could not confirm that was Limbaugh's case without access to his medical history.

Steve Plamann, executive editor of The National Enquirer, said he was gratified by Limbaugh's admission and his plans to seek help.

"We didn't do our stories gleefully. We just reported the facts," Plamann said.

However, Limbaugh said that reports about his addiction have inaccuracies and distortions which he will clarify when he is able to speak about them.

Premiere spokesman Michael Sitrick said Limbaugh is expected to return to his program after completing treatment. Several guest hosts were scheduled until then.

[GB]

You all are missing my point. I know Slick doesn't have the guts to do something like that.

What I'm posing is an imaginary scenario of what the reaction would be here IF HE DID!

And I guarantee you, I don't care if he produced a ream of doctor's reports about the kind of pain he was in, a bunch of folks here would be building the gallows and coiling the hemp simply because he's our political enemy, where many of them are not just cutting Rush the slack that he deserves but seem to be almost acting the part of the mind-numbed dittoheads that the libs have falsely accused us of being for 15 years by saying that this is all just lies and an evil plot to screw Rush, simply because he's our political friend.

And is that not the same kind of situational ethics and moral relativism that we rail about? Does right and wrong depend on who's ox is being gored?

Again, Rush messed up. Period. And no other force or factor in this or any known solar system caused him to mess up. He bears the responsibility, which he eloquently accepted yesterday. And I'm sure he'll accept any consequences in the same fashion. And I'm sure he'll bounce back from this.

[Duramaximus]

"I have had back pain. I can tell you it is an excruciating condition that requires painkillers of all sorts to achieve any kind of functionality."

No one really knows how the pain of a back injury affects the quality of their life until they experience it for themselves. I pray that no one ever has to go through what I did.

I wrenched my back at work in 1989. Following several trips to the hospital I contracted a Staphyloccal infection, and it settled into the weakest point in my system... my back. The pain was beyond belief, masked only through regular injection of morphine.

The final diagnosis was Osteomylitis. Thank God for wonderful surgeons. After a long and complicated surgery, minus one rib used as bone implant in the spinal column, I was back to leading a normal life after 6-months.

The Drs. worried about the long-term effects of my continued injections of morphine while in the hospital. Once the surgery was done I pulled myself off continued use of medications to mask the remaining pain. I never went back.

Thankfully, today I am 100% pain-free.

[Skip Ripley]

It would seem that a lack of moral consistency is a more Clintonian trait...

[rface]

I know someone that got a 5 year suspended sentence from a first time prescription fraud case. Limbaugh should receive similar if guilty.

Perscription fraud involves forging a perscription or using a Doctors Identification (signature and id #) to obtain drugs from a pharmacy. Like what Jeb Bush's daughter did - I don't recall Limbaugh being acused of that

[willieroe]

Um, not too put too fine a point on it, but if Rush hadn't been outted by the NE, do you think he would have told us about it?

I don't have an "alternative universes" machine. I'll let others play that game.

[Skip Ripley]

No, but I don't think it's fair to throw quotes at the man that predate his exposure to the specific problem. It would be fair to call him a hypocrit had he railed against prescription drug misuse last week or after he became an addict.

[Hostage]

Once the surgery was done I pulled myself off continued use of medications to mask the remaining pain.

I would wager that was not easy. Please describe how it happened so that others can infer why Rush and his lifestyle or personality were not able to.

Thanks.

[Howlin]

I'll take that as a no, he wouldn't have answer.

[ambrose]

http://www.ndsn.org/marapr98/legal1.html

---

Rush Limbaugh Ponders Legal Drug Market

LEGALIZATION March-April 1998

On March 12, in response to a caller who asked why the Clinton Administration was not fighting illegal drugs with the same effort being used to fight the tobacco industry, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh responded with some support of a legalized, regulated drug market (The Rush Limbaugh Radio Show, March 12, 1998).

Remarks of Rush Limbaugh on the March 12 show transcribed by the Media Awareness Project:

"[Drug] interdiction doesn't work and the effort to convince people not to do it really doesn't work. In fact, with young people it may even entice them more ...

Based on the reality of how we're going after cigarette smokers, the thing that we cannot do in the drug fight right now is regulate because it's illegal. Drugs are against the law and so the manufacturers are illegal. They're not even on shore; they're down there in Colombia and the Cali Cartel and they're working to poison the brains and minds of the future of America. And so what we do is to try to keep those drugs from getting in. And I agree with you that it's a half baked effort ...

It seems to me that what is missing in the drug fight is legalization. If we want to go after drugs with the same fervor and intensity with which we go after cigarettes, let's legalize drugs. Legalize the manufacture of drugs. License the Cali Cartel. Make them tax payers and then sue them. Sue them left and right and then get control of the price and generate tax revenue from it. Raise the price sky high and fund all sorts of other wonderful social programs.

Because it seems to me, flippant as though it may sound to you, that what gives us the power to do what we're doing, what gives the government the power to do what it is doing, state and federal, in cigarettes, is that it's a legal substance regulated by the federal government. And they don't have any such power and control over drugs because it's illegal. So let's legalize them and then go after them the same way ...

You have to understand that there's not a big morality play going on here with cigarettes. All there is in the minds of the citizens, they think it's all about morality and our kids, but it's about money. Look at the lawyers down in Florida. They had a contract 25% of whatever they could collect. Well that would mean that some lawyers are going to make $200 million. The purpose of all this was to help our kids and so forth. The lawyers just want money. Everybody wants their cut -- Clinton, Congress, the States all want their cut. It's all about money.

That's why I'm telling you. You may think my statement here flippant but you asked why aren't we going after drugs as fervently as we're going after cigarettes. I agree with [stopping] cocaine, marijuana, uh, well, cocaine, crack, LSD, heroin, all those you can [but] I don't know of anybody who overdosed on cigarettes. I do know that people have burned their houses down but I don't know anybody who said I'm going to smoke cigarettes until I die and then pulled it off inside of 12 hours. I do know people who've overdosed on drugs and know of them. You talk about death and the ruined lives -- heroin addiction is far more debilitating that tobacco addiction. Let's be honest about it. Tobacco addiction is a 30-year death. Heroin addiction is instant death and yet we're not going after this stuff with the same moral fervor that we are. Why? Because we're not going after cigarettes with a moral fervor either; we're going after cigarettes because of money.

Now if you want to go after drugs on the same basis you've got to make it a target for money and the only way that I can think of to do that is either [let] the government become the pimp and sell the stuff, make it prescription with the government as the pharmacist; or you legalize drugs, let them come into the country, get a whole bunch of generations of people using these things and then decide some years later that 'This is terrible. We must stop this. This is horrible. Those drug manufacturers have lied to us about the safety of the product. They said they we're going to control the amounts and they haven't. We're suing them.' And then go and get some money from the Cali drug cartel legally."

[Burr5]

Actually, you MEANT to say "hypocrite", but I'm not the spelling police.

I usually just hang around here to be callled a "Rush Butt Sucker" by people who think they're right about everything just because they've been in the Navy.

We Air Force types tend to use a more civil tone.

[weegee]

There certainly has been a piling on in the media (and here on FR) with regards to Rush. Notice how the ESPN story (which preceded the drug story by a day even though the event transpired days earlier) has lost its momentum?

Now that Rush has admitted his addiction, that is the focus of the attacks in the press on Rush.

The left does not care how they lynch him, just so long as the job is done.

Red Asner has admitted that Rush won't be the last (and Michael Savage claimed that he would not be the last when he was fired from MSNBC).

Overreacting and eating our own is not the answer.

[weegee]

The short version of that essay:

"The power to tax is the power to destroy". This is Rush's proposed solution to the war on drugs (and it is credible).

[willieroe]

I'll take that as a no, he wouldn't have answer.

As I said, some just like to play games, rather than engage in dialog.

I haven't listened to Rush regularly since the mid-1990's, but from the early 1990's, perhaps the most crucial bit of encouragement that I have received from listening to Rush is to think for myself. I certainly did not sign a contract with Rush in which he would divulge every bit of negative information about his life, in return for my faithful audience.

[Eldorado431]

I think before Law Enforcement goes after Rush for being a user, they should first go after the other Millions that have been caught using drugs case by case and in numerical order. Then when and if it is up to Rush's Number in the Year 2525 let them go after him. By the way un-named sources does not cut it in my Book.

[nmh]

I think we need to hear more from Limbaugh rather than this wild speculation that's in most threads on him. I'm sure he'll tell all who are interested. He's taken one step forward in acknowledging that he is addicted to apin medication, knows it's tough because he tried before to get off them. He knows his credibility is at stake and maybe his life if quanitites taken were excessive. I say, give him a break and let him tell you the truth rather than liberal reporters ever so eager to destroy him. Don't aid the liberal media with more blind negative speculation. They'll happily do it for you.

[Burr5]

They just hate Rush.

But Tommy Chong isn't really in jail for selling bongs.

The police actually found a pound(!) of weed in his house at the time of the bust.

I'm not starting a pot war here, but jail for the end-user (whether of marijuana or Oxycontin) has always seemed like both a waste of resources and a puritanical over-reaction.

How about the authorities confiscate the pot and the judge fines him according to the amount (say not-to-exceed a thousand bucks?).

[TonyM]

I think it makes a big difference when the person who started your addiction was an M.D. and doing so legally as a prescribed drug. They get you hooked, then leave you hanging.

[Lurker]

Wow, touched a nerve there did I?

It takes two to 'traffic' in drugs. One to provide, one to receive. It's not a one way street as it were.

If all he did was take the drugs, then he is receiving drug traffic.

Nowhere did I ever allege he was selling the stuff.

Now calm down, take your meds and a real deep breath.

We now have some independent confirmation that Mr. Limbaugh has been under investigation for receiving narcotics illegally. That's a crime commonly referred to as 'trafficing'.

I'll repeat. I never alleged that he sold the stuff, only that it has been alleged that he illegally received it. Not that it matters. In Florida criminal statutes there doesn't seem to be much distinction between the two.

Now why don't you go reread what I said before you go calling me a liberal. Turning a blind eye to lawbreaking seems to be a liberal trait leftover from the Clinton years after all.

L

[Lurker]

Wow, touched a nerve there did I?

It takes two to 'traffic' in drugs. One to provide, one to receive. It's not a one way street as it were.

If all he did was take the drugs, then he is receiving drug traffic.

Nowhere did I ever allege he was selling the stuff.

Now calm down, take your meds and a real deep breath.

We now have some independent confirmation that Mr. Limbaugh has been under investigation for receiving narcotics illegally. That's a crime commonly referred to as 'trafficing'.

I'll repeat. I never alleged that he sold the stuff, only that it has been alleged that he illegally received it. Not that it matters. In Florida criminal statutes there doesn't seem to be much distinction between the two.

Now why don't you go reread what I said before you go calling me a liberal. Turning a blind eye to lawbreaking seems to be a liberal trait leftover from the Clinton years after all.

L

[veronica]

I don't agree with this statement, but having said it, Rush should be checking into a prison -- not going off to a country club detox center.

It's clear that you know nothing about the law.