November 17th 03, 01:03 AM
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opinion piece printed in Orange County Register
Sunday, November 9, 2003
The gross hypocrisy of the drug warriors
By Joseph Seehusen
Rush Limbaugh's ordeal has exposed every drug warrior in America
as a rank hypocrite, and for that the entire nation owes him a debt of
gratitude.
One thing we don't hear from American politicians very often is
silence, especially where the drug war is concerned.
Yet when the story broke that Limbaugh was being investigated on
suspicion of illegally procuring enough Oxy-Contin pain medication "to
kill a horse," as his housekeeper described it, we heard hardly a peep
from the usual tough-on-crime crowd in Washington, D.C.
Given their longstanding support for the drug war, it's fair to
ask:
Why haven't President Bush or his law-and-order attorney general,
John Ashcroft, uttered a word criticizing Limbaugh's lawbreaking?
Why aren't drug czar John P. Walters or his predecessor, Barry
McCaffrey, lambasting Limbaugh as a menace to society and a threat to
"our children"?
Why aren't DEA agents storming Limbaugh's $30 million Florida
mansion in a frantic search for criminal evidence?
Why haven't federal, state and local police agencies seized the
celebrity's homes and luxury cars under asset-forfeiture laws?
Finally, why aren't bloviating blabbermouths like William Bennett
publicly explaining how America would be more virtuous if Limbaugh were
prosecuted, locked in a steel cage and forced to abandon his wife, his
friends and his career?
The answer is obvious: America's drug warriors are shameless
hypocrites who believe in one standard of justice for ordinary
Americans and another for themselves, their families and their
political allies. That alone should completely discredit them.
Last time I checked, the Florida legal code that imposes a five-
year prison term for illegally procuring prescription drugs contains no
exceptions for popular, politically connected talk show hosts.
And the distinction being made by apologists for Limbaugh between
prescription drugs and "illegal" drugs is spurious: Procuring Valium,
Percocet or Oxy-Contin from a street-corner pusher is just as illegal
as buying cocaine or heroin. If a legal prescription drug isn't
prescribed for you, then it's not legal.
So if this pill-popping pontificator deserves a get-out-of-jail-
free card, these drug warriors had better explain why.
The fact is that 400,000 nonviolent Americans have been
imprisoned for committing the same "crime" as Limbaugh: buying, selling
or ingesting a substance without government approval.
The central premise of the drug war is that addicts like Limbaugh
pose a threat to society because they will cheat, steal and even kill
to get their next fix.
Never mind that neither Limbaugh nor the vast majority of those
already in jail ever did any of these things. Most were living fairly
normal lives until the government dragged them off to prison,
destroying their lives, families and careers in the process.
But there may be an even more disturbing reason, aside from mere
hypocrisy, why the drug warriors are silent about Limbaugh. Perhaps the
Bushes and Ashcrofts and McCaffreys of the world believe, correctly,
that individuals fighting a drug addiction deserve medical, not
criminal, treatment.
If that's the case, there's a simple way to redeem themselves and
salvage some good from the Limbaugh case: Get the government out of the
business of deciding who can take what medication, period. As long as
politicians have the power to decide which drugs are necessary and/or
legal, those laws will be made -- and enforced -- arbitrarily.
If a pain-wracked radio talk show host wants to take OxyContin,
that should be his decision, not the government's. Ditto with a victim
of AIDS or cancer who needs medical marijuana.
Deep down, even the drug warriors know that Rush Limbaugh would
be better off in a drug treatment center than in a prison cell. It's
about time they gave every other American with a drug problem the Rush
Limbaugh treatment.
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