Warrants: Limbaugh Was 'Doctor Shopping'

My Way.Com ^ | 12/4/03 | Jill Barton

[Lucky2]

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Investigators raided the offices of Rush Limbaugh's doctor Thursday, saying in search warrants that the conservative radio commentator engaged in illegal drug use and "doctor shopping" for prescription painkillers.

The warrants show investigators were looking for records including prescription disbursements, appointment schedules, receipts and a medical questionnaire.

"Mr. Limbaugh's actions violate the letter, and spirit" of the law that relates to "doctor shopping," stated one of warrants, signed by Asim Brown, a law enforcement agent assigned to the state attorney's office anti-money laundering task force. Doctor shopping refers to looking for a doctor willing to prescribe drugs illegally.

Limbaugh denied any wrongdoing to listeners on his radio show earlier Thursday and accused prosecutors in Palm Beach County of going on a "fishing expedition."

[ladyinred]

I think the post I was responding to was talking about Ashcroft and his patriot act according to the poster.

[CobaltBlue]

If you take narcotics regularly over a long period of time for chronic pain, you *will* become addicted to them. So in the sense of being a drug addict, there's no difference between someone who gets their drugs legally and someone who gets them illegally.

What matters is HOW you get them. If a doctor prescribes them, then you're not a street junkie. If you go to four different doctors for one month's supply of the same drugs every month, you're still not a street junkie, but you're probably breaking the law.

When you tell your four doctors what you're taking, do you tell all four of them everything you're taking? Or do you tell each of them that he's your only doctor and you get your drugs only from him?

Maybe the solution would be to legalize narcotics, so you can buy them without a prescription. That would be one way of solving the problem, wouldn't it? No crime, no criminal.

[secretagent]

Yep. Repeal adult consensual "crime" laws. The laws themselves initiate harm.

[Twinkie]

Martha White! You've surely heard of Martha White
flour! Makes the best biscuits.

[driftless]

The thing is as I'm not for putting people in jail for possessing illegal "recreational" drugs, I'm certainly not for jailing someone desperately seeking legal drugs for a painful medical condition even if they do it in an illegal manner. The fact is if this were someone other than Limbaugh, they would not be scrutinized as closely.

[CobaltBlue]

Codeine is good stuff. I take a little bit every day, and if I hurt bad, I take more. Demerol and morphine are good, too. God gave us opiates because He loves us, is my opinion. How else to explain how a plant-derived substance closely mimics exactly the body's own painkilling endorphins? Being a drug addict isn't a crime, in and of itself, either.

That said - drugs impair your mind, and they interfere with your thinking, and they impair your driving, and they make you dangerous in some occupations. I don't want a codeine-addicted airline pilot or brain surgeon, thank you. And I sure don't want kids hopped up on oxycontin driving around my neighborhood.

Rush's ability to do what he does strung out on oxycontin amazes me. He must have the constitution of an ox.

[ConservativeMan55]

LOL!

[ladyinred]

I only have one doctor, but I understand your point.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

If you take narcotics regularly over a long period of time for chronic pain, you *will* become addicted to them

I didn't. My codiene use increased as the pain increased, not because I developed tolerance to a certain dosage. It would have been very easy for me to have said "I need Percocet" and used that. I was looking for pain relief, not a happy pill. If doctors are allowed to agressively treat pain without fear of lawsuits or the DEA, there would be fewer addictions. Fewer patients would resort to self-medication because there are no other options open to them.

The trick is to treat pain before it becomes a chronic issue.

[CobaltBlue]

Seems to me that Limbaugh has so far come out better than the street junkies I've known.

I once represented a woman who went to prison for two years for selling one rock of crack cocaine to an undercover cop. It was her first offense, too. And she had several kids, and was pregnant.

The judge let her stay out until she gave birth. Said he thought he was doing the kids a favor by putting their mama away so they weren't around drugs.

She would have done better on a plea bargain but she wouldn't bargain, she said she didn't do it.

[CobaltBlue]

Oh, and then there was the guy who was put away for six years for selling one rock of crack cocaine to an undercover cop, but he had a record. I decided I wasn't really cut out for criminal defense.

[Redleg Duke]

So much for "getting a second opinion". Now, if you are Conservative, that is actually "Doctor Shopping".

[ConservativeMan55]

[Jim Noble]

The number of doctor shopping drug addicts is in the hundreds of thousands, if not the millions.

Sometimes they can be quite a problem.

In my thirty years of prescribing, I have never-NEVER- NOT ONCE-seen law enforcement take an interest in this, even when office staff are threatened.

Something is up with this, something strange.

[cyborg]

Is this 'invesigation' going to go the way of the nefarious money laundering investigation?

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

The amazing thing was I was not strung out. Being pain free was the only time I could function. I had a job & three small children. Oops, make that 3 small children and one large child (husband).

I guess the difference is that I took the codiene for one reason only--pain control. When that reason no longer exsisted, I did not think twice about taking any type of narcotic.

[I must admit, I have a stash in the house. My greatest fear is having to live like that again.]

[ConservativeMan55]

Thats what it looks like. They won't be able to go very far with it.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

When that reason no longer exsisted, I did not think twice about taking any type of narcotic.

Clarification.....I did not think about taking any narcotic. Some how my original reads like I kept on taking narcotics. Which I did not.

[DaughterofEve]

I see you are in Tennessee. I thought it was only in NY that Drs suffer from paranoia of prescribing. You have to beg for aspirin around here. A few years back, I had a Dr. that I had to PLEAD with to prescribe me two days worth of pyridine to help me through the beginning hell of a bladder infection. He asked me if I was sure that I really needed it. By the way, pyridine is now sold over the counter.

[beckett]

I don't know if I could have withstood the pain Rush underwent, nor its resulting consequences.

Your comment implies that Limbaugh's pain was the only factor driving him to use the drug, and that the best medical care money could but was negligent in alleviating or was unable to alleviate it. And so he had to bravely and forlornly break away from accepted clinical practice and medicate himself.

Nonsense.

Limbaugh was into the drug for the high. That's what addicts do, and that's why they concoct schemes to procure drugs in whatever way possible, just as Limbaugh did. Sorry to burst your bubble.