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So someone who gets addicted because he's taking pills for pain is equivalent to someone who smokes dope for fun?

Yep.

First of all, a multi-millionaire has many remedies to pain and addiction not open to the hoi-polloi. Rush's efforts to drop this stuff have been half-hearted at best. When we look behind the curtain (as in the Wizard of Oz) it ought to be fairly obvious. Rush is on these drugs because he wants to be on these drugs. No different than Elvis.

So the sympathy ploy doesn't wash with me.

He's a doper. As I know many people who are worthwhile - even extremely talented - who are dopers, it doesn't bother me. What does bother me deeply is his HYPOCRISY.

I love Rush. This situation he is in does little to change that. I wish him well. I have dabbled in pain pills and, as libertarian as I am, I have learned to appreciate that they require a prescription.

But I also smoke dope for fun and relaxation. I can tell you I am not a slave to my weed. I wouldn't ever steal, cheat, or kill for weed. I wouldn't put my health in major danger for weed. It is just something I do at home at the end of a long and productive day at work. My dad does the same thing, only his recreational relaxer is 2 or 3 small glasses of gin.

So I would say that someone addicted to prescription pills that were originally taken to treat pain and someone that smokes dope for fun are not equivalent. I think the guy smoking dope for fun is doing a lot less harm to his health, family, etc. than the guy addicted to the more deadly prescription stuff. But I don't think of either people as automatically evil.

Again, my thoughts are with Rush. He is a good man with a bad problem and I am thankful he is seeking treatment. We need him around!

"Fellow dopers? So someone who gets addicted because he's taking pills for pain is equivalent to someone who smokes dope for fun? I don't think so."

Are you trying to make a moral distinction; such that there is moral and immoral addiction, to addictive, mind altering substances?

Follow this example: A few 15 year old boys get some beer, and each drinks a couple. Over the following years, each of them drinks with varying frequencies and patterns.

One drinks little to nothing, for it simply makes him naseous. The slight euphoria isn't worth the physical discomfort, to him.

Most of the others drink occasionally, and grow to adulthood, without alcohol becoming the central item in their lives.

But one boy is drawn to alcohol, from that first time. He drinks as much and as often, as he can. By age 18 it has disrupted his life. By age 21 it has him in trouble with the law.

Science has been searching for the "something" that separates the alcoholic boy, from the rest.

You want it to be some moral distinction?

Drugs are far more addictive, than alcohol.

Fellow dopers? So someone who gets addicted because he's taking pills for pain is equivalent to someone who smokes dope for fun? I don't think so.

As a recovering drug addict myself, I can tell you with certainty that once addictin sets in, the original motivations are meaningless. The behaviors are the exact same. At my Narcotics Anonymous meetings, we hear the EXACT same stories from the 'good motivated' addicts and the 'bad motivated' addicts.

It is a distinction without a difference.