Limbaugh med records seized

[longtermmemmory]

more to follow

[Mr. Lucky]

Why would President (or Governor) Bush even be talking to Rush Limbaugh's doctors?

[alnick]

My stepdad insists that no doctor would prescribe enough drugs that someone could get addicted to them.

Oxycontin is said to be extremely addictive. Lots of people become addicted due to being prescribed Oxycontin by good doctors, apparently. I think there's a calculated risk in prescribing something like that. On one hand they can work very well; on the other hand, there is a chance of addiction.

I imagine that great wealth can be a bad thing in a situation like this. Money to acquire the drugs was not an issue.

I may be mistaken, but I don't believe that it has been established as fact exactly how Rush acquired the drugs. As far as I know, the only thing that has been said about it has been a National Enquirer article reporting the maid's story.

As to how he acquired them, I will wait until the facts come out before I either believe that he bought them on the black market or through prescriptions.

[deport]

why was he buying them on the blackmarket?

---

Was he? Now it's been said he may have bought some on the blackmarket but not a fact in evidence as of yet... IMO he most likely did but not proven as of yet.

[Lee'sGhost]

"It isn't necessarily that way. "

No, but, given his admitted addiction, it would seem that way. As someone else said, it is a natural progression before you get to buying off the street.

I am more concerned about the compromised privacy. Especially with the HIPPA rules is place. They have to be pursuing something very serious to get access to medical records. Whether it's legit or not, that's another question.

[xzins]

I know that conversations/records between psychiatrists and patients are privileged communications.

Why would a person's medical records not be privileged?

Sounds to me like it's time for Rush temporarily to have an extended visit to a different state. This is purely political.

[Labyrinthos]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if he DID have a legitimate reason for taking the drugs, why was he buying them on the blackmarket?

A minor, irrelevant detail. < /sarcasm >

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

Someone please help me here. My stepdad insists that no doctor would prescribe enough drugs that someone could get addicted to them.

If that were true then they wouldn't prescribe addictive drugs in the first place, addiction isn't something that can be avoided with a low dose, though that certainly lessen's the possibility. For most patients a normal detox is enough to get rid of the addiction. For some due to pain, larger than normal phyical addiction, or psychological addiction, detox is not enough. If Rush broke the law it was probably after the first or second detox. =

[RJS1950]

Your stepdad is fooling himself and/or you too. I have a couple of in-laws who did the "shop-around" routine until they found a doctor sleazy enough (didn't have to go far) to continually prescribe large amounts of painkillers. One of the two nitwits is still doing this, the other has graduated to crack and meth.

[longtermmemmory]

discoverable information does not have to be admissible.

They may argue it was being discovered for potential impeachment evidence.


They are using excuses to conduct and abusive fishing expedition.

I hope Mr. Black will conduct counter discovery regading all political communications and sue for selective enforcement. I also hope he files a bar complaint againse all Palm Beach Prosecutors for using the process for political gain.

Last I hope rush counter sues for selective enforcement. NO ONE else goes through this much of an anal probe in a USER CASE.

[GretchenEE]

stepdad insists that no doctor would prescribe enough drugs that someone could get addicted to them

Actually, people have different levels at which they can become addicted. Also, four doctors' records were seized. It is possible Rush was getting the same or similar prescription pain meds from all four; so if he were, one doctor would not necessarily know that he was only providing one-fourth of the prescription pain meds the patient could take.

I'm not saying anything about what did happen, but pointing out how something might have occurred.

[pageonetoo]

"Not to change the subject.....but I am.....what has happened to the fonts....they are shrinking."

I think they must have just come out of the pool!

[alancarp]

I agree completely: this is certainly private material - which by the State Constitutional authority is unreachable at this time.

Meanwhile: speaking to an earlier comment -- Robert Downey Jr. and Darryl Strawberry were found to be in possession of Cocaine and other fun chemicals. Plus they were addicted. Both of them were slapped on the wrist multiple times before their use of ILLEGAL drugs was rewarded with prison time.

The difference here is pretty obvious -- legal perscription drugs; no prior criminal record. No information has really been unearthed about whether they were completely legally obtained, so I refuse to go further.

[VRWC_minion]

Bush ='s Rush. My typo and bad eyesight to see the error.

[GretchenEE]

You can defeat font changes by changing preferences in IE > Tools > Internet Options > Accessibility > Ignore font sizes specified on Web pages

This keeps 'em all in proportion and readable.

[Peach]

Roy Black, attorney for Rush Limbaugh, released the following statement today: "We have been informed that this afternoon the Palm Beach State Attorneys Office will announce that it has seized the medical records of four doctors who treated Rush Limbaugh for serious medical conditions and the pain resulting from them. In fact, what these records show is that Mr. Limbaugh suffered extreme pain and had legitimate reasons for taking pain medication.

"Unfortunately, because of Mr. Limbaugh's prominence and well-known political opinions, he is being subjected to an invasion of privacy no citizen of this republic should endure. Let us make our position clear: Rush Limbaugh is not part of a drug ring. He was never a target of a drug investigation. He became addicted to a prescription drug during legitimate medical treatment. He has publicly admitted this problem and has successfully sought treatment, which continues today.

"We won't speculate on why the State Attorney's Office is handling Mr. Limbaugh's case the way it is. But what should be a responsible investigation is looking more and more like a fishing expedition."

[dmz]

I'm not sure about this, but thought I heard, that a pattern of transactions just under the reporting limit, made with the intent of avoiding the reporting limit is illegal.

Lawyers?

[deport]

Rushie may have opened up a can of worms that he wish he'd have never seen.... Looks like bigger things on the horizon...

Posted on Thu, Dec. 04, 2003

Conn. A.G.'s OxyContin hunt leads to us
By ROSE DeWOLF
dewolfr@phillynews.com

Connecticut's attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, doesn't usually click onto Philly.com - the Web site featuring stories from the Daily News and Inquirer.

But he began clicking onto it recently as part of an investigation he's been conducting into illegal use of OxyContin, a powerful painkiller made by a Connecticut-based pharmaceutical company.

OxyContin abuse was highlighted recently when radio commentator Rush Limbaugh admitted he'd been addicted to it for years, and authories launched an investigation into how he'd been obtaining it.

According to Blumenthal, his investigators were told that searchers could find ads offering OxyContin illegally on Philly.com, as well as the Web sites of the New York Times, USA Today, the Boston Globe and the Miami Herald.

Blumenthal wrote to all the newspapers involved to ask them to do something about this.

"We didn't think the newspapers were purposely threatening the public interest," said Blumenthal. "We thought they weren't aware of it."

Fred Mann, general manager of Philly.com, said he certainly had not been aware of it.

But, it seems, that if someone typed the word OxyContin into the Web site's search engine, links to ads - some of them hyping ways to order the drug online without a prescription - popped up.

However, shortly after Blumenthal sent his letters to the papers, those ads disappeared. Nobody told either Blumenthal or Mann how that had occurred.

"But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that someone was reacting to our letter," Blumenthal said.

In the case of Philly.com, that someone works for Overture Services Inc., a national company that supplies the ads linked to searches on many Web sites.

"We decided to remove all prescription pharmacy drugs from our database," said Jennifer Stephens, spokeswoman for Overture Services.

That, she said, stopped all OxyContin ads. But the company was arranging for a program that would eventually enable legitimate ads to return, she said.

[longtermmemmory]

It does not seem that is why they are collecting the medical evidence. It seems they have nothing, so now they are trying to see if they can say he bought "X" number of pills but had enough money to buy "X times 100" pills. Therefore since he had that much money to buy pills he must have bought that many pills. Why would anyone spend cash when you could pay on the books and not avoid paying taxes?

They are trying to set up a no win situation. If he paid cash for items to avoid a paper trail, they will screw him for not keeping records of his expenses.

I predict that the florida legislators will enact new privacy laws because all of those fools have done the same thing with regards to maximizing cash usage.

[LS]

I am part of the "Pro-Rush" crowd, but I am bothered by the complete absence of a statement, anywhere, any time, that Rush "never purchased prescription drugs illegally or used illegal prescription drugs."

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

Right -- that's exactly the point: there seems to be no Constitutional or legal provision for grabbing records without either an announced investigation or a criminal charge being involved. He will own Palm Beach County.

Get real folks any private records can be searched with a warrent! The maid made a plausable accusation, then Rush admits he is addicted! What judge wouldn't OK a search warrent given the above. Now I like Rush but I think the government has a valid cause for searching his medical records.