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Rush Limbaugh Wins the Drug War by krystallnacht (jarktastic@jark.com) on Oct 21, 2003 12:14:16 PM

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So Rush Limbaugh, the squeaky, sexually-ambiguous right-wing bigot and guru to tens of millions of gullible white trash Americans, turns out to be a junkie.   A white trash junkie par excellence, his poison pill of choice, OxyContin, known in rural white America as "hillbilly heroin." Rush pops the hillbilly heroin, while the hillbillies feed his habit by tuning in loyally to his sermons...which preach the evils of drugs. Whatta junkie! Not just any ol' junkie either, but an opiate hog so voracious he makes Kurt Cobain and Thomas de Quincey seem like lightweights by comparison. At least, if you believe the latest Newsweek cover story. No matter how many times the US press reports a new outing of some billionaire celebrity junkie, they insist on dragging out the old lies about junkies as poor sad losers crying for help. So let's list the lies, complete with example from the current Newsweek's cover story on Limbaugh's fall, followed by a brief statement of the obvious, forbidden truth. Lie #1: "drugs wreck your life." NEWSWEEK'S VERSION: "[Limbaugh] was...for the past several years [when he was addicted to opiates] living in a private hell of pain and compulsion." Getting arrested for drugs wrecks your life--not using them. If drugs wreck your life, how come Rush's career hit its biggest high while he was gulping down every OxyContin he could buy? And how come none of his 20 million loyal listeners, not to mention his employers or his enemies in the political/media world, noticed any change in the quality of Rush's broadcasts during his years of addiction? In 2001, when by his own admission he was high all the time, Rush won a contract for $280 million dollars. Your life should be so "wrecked"! Oh, by the way, all you Dittoheads, how does it feel to know that every Limbaugh line that made you chuckle was delivered by a junkie who was high as a kite on-air? Lie "#2: "Drugs are for losers." NEWSWEEK'S VERSION: "Off-air, [Limbaugh] was a lonely man...a childless, twice-divorced, thrice-married schlub..." Fact: prescription opiates are a perk reserved for the American elite. Limbaugh gave a perfect example in describing his flirtation with Prozac: "'Do I have to go to the doctor for it?' Limbaugh said he asked... 'Oh yeah, it's a prescription, but we can get some for you, given who you are,'...[dealers] replied." Free drugs are, with free sex, the top perks of fame in America. That's why every American celebrity is on drugs. Your favorite stars, your champions of family values, your adored Wall Street predators-every one of them is a junkie. But they aren't running any risk of arrest. Prescription opiates aren't even illegal-not if you're a success. When Winona Ryder was dumb enough to shoplift at Saks, she got searched and was found to be carrying seven different prescription drugs, mostly opiates. But she didn't do a single day for drugs, because it turned out doctors had prescribed every one of them. Nobody ever explained why a healthy young woman like her needed a prescription for liquid Demerol. Losers like you couldn't get that stuff even if you were on your deathbed, screaming in agony. But Winona had a bottle of it-and got it back, with apologies, from the cops who busted her. What is illegal is losers like you trying to use these drugs, which are reserved for the elite. For that, there's a serious penalty: months or years in an American prison, being gangraped and sold as a human toilet by one or another gang of racist monsters. In order to make this lie into a truth, we only need to add one key word: "Drugs are illegal for losers." Given the fact that so many successful and famous people are found out to have drug "problems," a more honest generalization would be that drugs are for WINNERS. Lie #3: "Drugs are a cry for help." NEWSWEEK'S VERSION: "[Limbaugh]...was a lonely object of mass adulation, socially ill at ease, at least occasionally depressed..." Yeah, it was Hell for Rush being rich and famous--"at least occasionally." Just like it was Hell for Winona ditzing around Hollywood being asked for autographs and floating on a cushion of opium clouds. Rush and Winona don't pop Demerol because they're lonely or troubled. They do it because--now, this is hard for most people to understand, so listen carefully--they do it because opiates make you feel great. Can we make it any plainer? Habla usted Ingles? Here it is in all caps, so you can read it plainly: OPIATES MAKE YOU FEEL GREAT. They're way better--and we mean way, WAY better--than booze, burgers or cigars, the booby prizes you boobies stick to. The only help Rush needed for his drug habit was getting some more pills fast. Lie #4: "Drugs kill." NEWSWEEK'S VERSION: "'Right now [OxyContin] is one of the most abused prescription drugs,' says one DEA official. 'It's certainly the most dangerous.'" McDonald's burgers and fries kill. Booze kills. Cigarettes kill...but prescription opiates don't. That's a medical fact: opiates are not cell-toxic. Alcohol is. Freedom Fries are. But Demerol, Darvon, Oxycontin, Lorocet are not. In fact, rich opiate users with nice cooperative MDs often live longer than non-users, simply because they eat less. And America could really use some of that side-effect--because it's fat, not drugs, that kills Americans. According to the US Government, obesity kills 300,000 Americans every year. If ordinary Americans were allowed to buy prescription opiates the way celebs are, Americans would instantly get slimmer, healthier, and a lot better looking. Take Rush: we'll bet you Rush's blood pressure and heartrate were better the longer he stayed on Oxycontin. His addiction has probably added ten years to his life-span. Of course, an American opiate-users who isn't rich like Rush faces terrible health risks. But it's not the opiates that kill him, it's Prohibition. Why do junkies OD and get AIDS? Because they have to inject, instead of taking safe little pills like Rush and Winona. When you inject, you risk infection. You also can't judge the potency of what you're using until it's too late, when the stuff's already in your bloodstream. Injecting any drug is very dangerous, and injecting illegal opiates of unknown potency is very, very dangerous. So why do non-wealthy junkies inject? Once again: Prohibition. The stuff has to be smuggled into the country; the smaller the volume the better. That means highly-concentrated powdered heroin, sold in tiny quantities at huge price. The only way to get high off these tiny quantities is to inject. So junkies shoot up, infect each other and die. Lie #5: "Once you start using that stuff you're addicted." NEWSWEEK'S VERSION: "I am addicted to prescription pain medication." Rush Limbaugh "Addiction" is a funny little word. It started out meaning something real; then it turned out you could be addicted to chocolate or shopping or sex or tennis. But the core meaning describes a physical fact: some substances are addictive. The most addictive of all is good old nicotine. This lethal, perfectly legal (even subsidized) toxin may be the worst drug of all. It keeps you hooked without giving you even a few minutes' high. Opiates are about one-tenth as addictive as nicotine, but they definitely do become addictive for some people. It's just not easy to say whether Rush was a hopeless addict or simply liked the stuff. He sounds like a very selfish, mistrustful man who liked to be alone, floating on his private cloud and didn't want to share his TV, his pills or his sofa. Is that addiction or just being an ordinary, selfish pig? Like most American arguments, it comes down to who can afford the best lawyers. And Rush has already hired one of the best in Florida. So by the time his case hits the courts, we'll all be sobbing for Rush and his addiction. But somebody should ask Rush a question: if addiction is real, then how come we have sent millions of Americans to hellish prisons for it? Isn't that kind of like sending diabetics to prison for trying to get insulin? We need to go back and check Rush's record for signs of sympathy for the helpless addicts who found themselves in his present predicament. And durned if we don't come across a clear, simple declaration of Rush's views: "Too many whites are getting away with drug use. The answer is to...find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them, and send them up the river." He's white all right. He's been getting away with it. But don't warm up the riverboat just yet, because Rush isn't going anywhere. If you really think he's ever going to see the inside of a prison cell, you're suffering from America's most widespread addiction: slurping up the self-serving lies their masters tell them.

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