Rush Limbaugh a drug addict? Whether you admire Rush or detest him (and few people are simply neutral), these charges must come as a shock. The conservative Mr. Limbaugh, no surprise, has zero public sympathy for drug abusers and has publicly stated they should be incarcerated. Mr. Limbaugh's defenders will doubtless portray Rush as a victim - a man whose post-surgery pain forced him to take narcotics, which, in turn, enslaved this heroic man. Critics will see Limbaugh as no different from any other junkie - turning to narcotics not for pain relief, but for those forbidden joys that only opiates can confer - joys that people have chased ever since discovering the Opium Poppy eons ago. [continues 250 words]
The opening salvo in America's interminable drug war was actually fired in 1914. With the passage of the Harrison Act, it became essentially illegal for a non-physician to prescribe opiates or cocaine. At the time they passed it, some legislators wondered if the government wasn't overstepping its bounds. After all, didn't free citizens have the right to decide what substances they would put in their bodies? And anyway, wasn't the practice of medicine something for the States to regulate? [continues 787 words]
