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Before you get huffy, where did Mr. Black exactly say anything that approaches you claim of faux pas?

I have been looking in the transcript. The only parts about buying drugs are cited in the parts identifying the leaks which you have denied.

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MR. BLACK: -- where they get the blood alcohol or something like that. What they're doing in this case, your Honor, and I think it's important your Honor know this, what they want is to get Rush Limbaugh's conversations with his doctors. There could be nothing more confidential and privileged than that. And to use his words that he talks to his doctors in order to bring a criminal case against him. And that's what makes this case different than any other case under this statute. And this is why I believe this is an extremely important case. I think that it is unprecedented. I think that Rush Limbaugh is being treated differently than anybody else; that there's a double standard going on here. And I think it's because of the type of client that I represent that this is happening. Now, I wanted to go into a couple of other it matters, although those are really the legal matters. These records are as intimate and delicate as there exist. Rush Limbaugh did not go to these doctors to seek pleasure. He went there to relieve pain. He had a serious hearing loss and went deaf. He had major surgery, and you'll see in these records the details of that surgery and the pain that he went through and the kind of treatment that he got. Secondly, he went to this other set of doctors because of his spine. In 1998 his coccyx bone was removed and it was found that he had cysts in his spine. He was being treated for the pain regarding these conditions at the Jupiter Out-Patient Surgery Center and they found he had degenerative disk disease and was being treated for chronic and intractable pain. At one point the pain was so great that they thought that he had bone cancer and did tests to determine whether or not that was true. In order not to use medication, because he knew and they knew what could happen as a result of using this medication, he agreed to a series of epidural steroid injections into his spine in order to prevent the pain from continuing.

It was unsuccessful. He was told the only alternative to taking this medication was a spinal surgery in which they had to go through the front of his throat in order to do the operation on his spine, and because of the type of profession he does, it could have caused a catastrophic result and therefore, the only thing he could do was to use pain medication. The doctors counseled him that there could be psychological and physiological dependence on pain medication. This was hardly a surprise. But they had to make the decision about using the medication or suffering the pain. They used a drug called OxyContin which everybody has talked about, which came into effect, I think, in 1996 was issued by the drug company. Today it is listed as the most potentially addictive medication that is legally available. It is being investigated in congress, in the FDA and there's a huge number of lawsuits that have been filed against the pharmaceutical company for the issuance of OxyContin. And the reason for that is OxyContin was marketed to doctors as being the least addictive pain drug available. And, in fact, it has turned out it was the most addictive pain drug available. And I would refer the Court, and much of my research on this came from Barry Meier's book called Painkiller, a Wonder Drug's Trail of Addiction and Death just published this year about the full history of OxyContin.

Florida authorizes the use of medications like this. I wanted to bring to your Honor's attention a Florida Statute called 458.326 called Intractable Pain Authorized Treatment. And the Florida Statute says, "For purposes of this section, the term 'intractable pain' means pain for which in the generally accepted course of medical practice the cause cannot be removed and otherwise treated. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a physician may prescribe or administer any controlled substance under Schedules II through V" -- and OxyContin and them are in Schedule II -- "as provided for in Section 893.03 to a person for the treatment of intractable pain. The Florida legislature made a finding, it is better to treat the pain than to worry about the subsequent possible addiction." As I said, these records will show the ultimate privacy and the need for privacy and I don't believe that the State has shown the particular concern for the privacy of my client with these records. They used a search warrant to obtain it. They didn't use a hearing first. They then filed in this court not just a copy of the search warrant, but they attached the affidavit and the exhibits. Never in my 33 years as a criminal lawyer have I seen prior to the filing of charges a prosecutor file an affidavit to a search warrant in a public record. In this public record they put a list of my client's physicians and the medications that have issued. These are the people telling you that they're concerned about my client's privacy rights. It has appeared on television, it is on web sites, it has been talked about on TV from one end of this country to another. Not just that. I received a call from legal counsel for this court, not your Honor personally, but the clerk of the circuit court, excuse me, telling us that they were going to post this warrant, the affidavit and the list of medications on this court's web site so anybody who wanted access to this could have so. We vehemently objected and we haven't heard anything about this since then. Now, the court in Hunter and all the others require this court to find there's a compelling State interest before these records are released. And my question is, is there a compelling State interest for these documents, the ones that are so sensitive to be given to the Palm Beach County State attorney's office? The State attorney's office in its submission to this court promises that the medical records, these medical records will not be made public; that they will keep them private and protect my client's privacy. Let me show you the history of privacy that has occurred during the course of this case. An article from October 3rd, 2003, from the ABC News wire. "A high ranking official in Florida has told ABC News some surprising details about the State's investigation of Rush Limbaugh." Two paragraphs down. "But a source close to the investigation told ABC News that Limbaugh's former housekeeper claims she helped Limbaugh purchase thousands of prescription pain pills over a four year period. The source also says investigators have audio tapes of at least two drug transactions allegedly with Limbaugh's voice, but these were recorded secretly by the former housekeeper, not by the police." On the front page of USA Today, October 3 through 5, 2003, Thursday, "Florida law enforcement sources confirmed to USA Today that Limbaugh is being investigated in Palm Beach as part of a probe into the illegal sale of prescription painkillers. Although the alleged drug dealers are the primary target, that does not include possible charges being filed against the buyers, the sources say." The National Enquirer of October 21, 2003. "A source close to the investigation involving Rush told the Enquirer that Limbaugh said he's going to cooperate with the probe. Investigators are hearing about his relationship with Wilma Cline, what his side of the story is, said the source." October 10, Associated Press.

.....snip to next Roy Black comments on leaks ....

MR. BLACK: Thank you. Last Wednesday I was called by a reporter from the Palm Beach Post and that reporter let it slip that these stories are coming from Mike Edmondson, who was the chief spokesman from the State attorney's office, and now we find out that Mr. Edmondson has been leaking and planting these stories in the press; that he has a symbiotic relationship with the Palm Beach Post who are now writing stories trying to discredit Mr. Limbaugh, trying to make his profession or the practice of his profession discredited, and I think it's an illegitimate purpose that is going on here. And I wanted to bring this to the Court's attention that I believe this investigation is political rather than a legitimate law enforcement investigation. I believe that this information, not from Mr. Martz and not from his associates, but it goes up higher in the office, and then all of this information is released to the various news medias, from ABC News to NBC, to the Palm Beach Post and the Sun Sentinel in an attempt to discredit Mr. Limbaugh. And I think it's important for the Court to realize what is going on in this. I've written a letter to Mr. Kirscher asking for an investigation into this, laying all this out, saying that I wanted, one, an investigation to see what the circumstances are; and two, I wanted Mr. Edmondson not to have access to any of these records. You have not turned over any records to them. But I have not received any response or any promise that Mr. Edmondson will not get his hands on Mr. Limbaugh's medical records.

.....Roy Blacks comments about the Clines....

MR. BLACK: I have about five minutes left and I will rush through it. David Cline with his wife decided to publically or threatened to publically disclose Mr. Limbaugh's addiction to pain medication, among other things. They obtained the security access codes to his Palm Beach studio. They cornered him in the parking garage to his studio and they demanded 4 million dollars in order to keep this quiet and not sell it to the Enquirer. They had followed him a number of times in order to be able to get to him personally. David Cline was sort of a wild man making threats not only against Mr. Limbaugh, but other people associated with him. At first Mr. Limbaugh adamantly refused to pay and wanted to inform the FBI about this extortion attempt by his former housekeeper and her husband. But he first sought advice on how he ought to proceed with others who are in the business with him. He was told that if he made a complaint to law enforcement, that the people in power would ignore the crimes being perpetrated against him and instead they would target him because of who he was.

He was told that his enemies would use the fact of this addiction as a weapon to discredit him, and, of course, all that this subsequently became true. Over years he paid substantial amounts of money to the Clines because of their extortion. After the Clines bled him dry, they then went to the Palm Beach County State attorney's office in December of 2002 where they were granted immunity from prosecution in order to be used as witnesses against Mr. Limbaugh. Secondly, with their newly minted immunity, the Clines turned around and were free to sell their story to the National Enquirer for $250,000. Because with immunity from prosecution, nobody could touch them. Once this false or mostly false story hits the news media, the National Enquirer and all of this, pressure is now put on the Palm Beach County State attorney's office to have a criminal investigation of Mr. Limbaugh, which they did not have before. But because this was publicized by the Clines, they decided that they had to do something about Mr. Limbaugh.
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So it seems we were debating over something that did not happen. Ahh the perils of posting late at night.