Posted on 02/14/2005 1:34:15 PM PST by rface
WEST PALM BEACH -- The prosecutor investigating whether Rush Limbaugh illegally purchased prescription painkillers told the Florida Supreme Court on Monday that investigators should be allowed to review the conservative radio commentator's medical records.
Assistant State Attorney James Martz said Limbaugh's argument that he should have been notified before the records were seized by investigators is equivalent to saying ``that law enforcement is never to be trusted.''
``Then search warrants should never be issued and law enforcement should never be permitted to investigate criminal activity for fear that they will abuse the power granted,'' Martz wrote in a brief filed with the Florida Supreme Court. ``Such reasoning would eviscerate law enforcement's ability to protect the public and enforce the law.''
Martz added that the 4th District Court of Appeal's ruling, which said Limbaugh's privacy rights were not violated when the records were seized in 2003, should be upheld.
``Privacy rights cannot operate as an impenetrable shield to conceal, camouflage, or secrete evidence of criminal wrongdoing,'' Martz wrote.
Limbaugh and his attorney, Roy Black, had no comment on Monday.
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
"The procecutor must, in all cases, show 'just cause' in asking for and receiving a search warrant."
That's true, but because of the importance courts attach to the "war on drugs," the rules do bend with records involving prescriptions of controlled substances. Rush could very well lose this privacy battle, although there might be other, due process issues, at stake (I haven't followed it in detail so don't know.)
Spent 11yrs there. I always said they needed to put a big fence around it, charge admission to get in and nothing to get out.
It would be a hell of a tax base.
I don't think that's there anymore. I left Spokane in Septermber of last year.
I left Ft. Polk in 1992 while it was still 5th Infantry Division Mechanized.
May have shut it down after the atomic energy commission irradiated the towns of Pasco and Richland.
But that is another story. I don't know enough about it to be dangerous.
(waiting for Feds with dart guns).....................
That'd be the Men in Black. :)
DOE spent millions on all kinds of studies that said it never happened.
The thing is, there were no live witnesses after 20 years or so.
I was born with some birth defects and my parents bugged out in 53.
They figured it was all part of the job. I guess I do to, but I wonder sometimes. We were real low on the learning curve back then.
Stuff happens.
What Rush is accused of doing is clearly morally wrong as well as illegal. What Rush has going for him is that it's also clear that there's a world of difference between the drugs he used - even though illegally obtained - and thugdrugs like crank and coke and heroin. Buying thugdrugs puts money into the hands of some of the nastiest, most despicable people on earth. And Liddy surived a felony conviction. So will Rush.
Yes there is!
This drug, Oxycodone, is a wonderful pain reliever engineered to relieve pain with the usual morphine side effects.
It works great, but like morphine,over time it takes more to get the same relief.
A human can build up a tremendous tolerance to it over time. As this happens, you become drug dependent, not drug addicted!
Dependency, like addiction is very difficult to beat by yourself. but it can be done depending on your level of intake. It is hard as hell.
But, it is the price that chronic pain patients pay to live a more normal existence. It is not to get high, stoned or screwed up!
Rush let it get out of control. He unfortunately had the resources to do this and I am quite sure he knew that, but he ignored it because to quit, he would have had to go into rehab. His dependency became more of a addiction.
He finally hit the wall, and it happened. I am happy for him, and I hope he has much better doctors working for him now. And that he stays out of trouble with this stuff.
I know this, because I use it too. The difference is that I have learned to control it and how to make low doses continue to work for me.
It ain't easy.
There's a difference between "pain relief" activity and "getting high on stuff you're supposed to be using for pain relief." We don't have to yield to temptation. (A guy I know has had enough experience with Oxy to know it can be a dangerous beast...) FReegards ;<)
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.
I think what you wrote is an absolutely excellent point!
This dog don't hunt.
First of all, the liberal press had to search through hundreds of radio commentaries to find them: the few comments Rush had made on ILLEGAL recreational drug abuse.
There is a world of difference between illegal cocaine and heroin addiction and prescribed pain killers becoming an addiction problem when precribed for a specific ailment. Rush did not CHOOSE to take these pills to get high... he HAD to take them to function.
My mother has multiple compression fractures of her spine... she has just been increased to two (2) hydrocodone every 4 hours to control the pain. That's 10 a day times 30 days times 6 months... equals 1800 pills. The 2000 that were prescribed for Limbaugh in a six month period is not that out of line for people suffering from intractable pain.
The ones with a taste for licking jackboot leather usually don't care if it is a TSA goon, a narc, or a BATFag.
I agree these prescribed painkiller drugs are VERY addictive. I watched a friend develop a dependency within a month of her prescription. Luckily for her she recognized what was happening and quit cold turkey, and it was not easy for her. She still had the pain, but realized what a slippery slope they were and how adversly they were impacting her work. If ANYONE takes painkillers, be careful.
"By looking at records they had to legal authority to do? "
Yep - When Rush's lawyer screwed up they had a day to LEGALLY go through his records - they KNOW what is there, Rush and his criminal lawyer KNOW what is in there, which explains why they are so desperate to have them sealed away from law enforcement.
"Rush did not CHOOSE to take these pills to get high... he HAD to take them to function."
There is a little debate on that point also...
"I took the drugs because I liked them and I found excuses to take them, so I'm not weaseling. I'm just saying that one of the things was that I did not put my health first."
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2003/11/17/235030.shtml
He's not being charge for his addition, he's being charged for doctor shopping. While doctor shopping is certainly a less violent felony than what you might encounter on the streets buying cocaine or heroin, it's a felony, none the less and still punishable.
I agree, fishing expeditions are not a legitimate reason to violate privacy rights.
"I agree, fishing expeditions are not a legitimate reason to violate privacy rights."
I agree also, but "fishing expeditions" don't get multiple judges to agree on search warrants.
Roy Black NEVER disputed the information contained in the affidavits used to obtain the warrants.
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