MAYBE LIMBAUGH WILL CHAMPION REHAB FOR ALL ADDICTS NOW

In this space last week, I discussed the allegations that Rush
Limbaugh was a drug addict. At the time, there were published reports
that he was hooked on Oxycontin, sometimes referred to as "hillbilly
heroin."

"If that turns out be the case, you can be sure we'll be hearing
stories about personal problems of one sort or another that led the
talk-show host to get involved with the drugs," I wrote. "The
addiction will be discussed as a medical problem."

Which is exactly what drug addiction is, I wrote. Then I described
some dead-end fellows at the courthouse for whom addiction is not a
medical problem, but a crime.

I received a lot of angry e-mails. That wasn't surprising. Limbaugh
has a large audience, and his faithful listeners are fed up with the
liberal media. They were particularly fed up last week because their
guy had been forced to resign from his role as "intelligent fan" on a
football show. Now I was trying to compare Limbaugh with a bunch of
lowlifes at the courthouse. It was just the sort of thing one might
expect from a liberal.

Truth is, I don't consider myself a very good liberal, but I am
certainly no ditto-head. I've listened to Limbaugh's show just enough
to know that I don't like his style. Constant ridicule is not my idea
of entertainment. That has nothing to do with politics. If James
Carville had a radio show, I wouldn't listen to it, either.

So I wasn't listening Friday when Limbaugh announced that he was, in
fact, a drug addict. He mentioned an investigation, and he said he was
going into rehab. That sounds like something a good lawyer would
advise a client to do, and Limbaugh has hired one of the best. In an
act of harmonic convergence, Limbaugh has retained Roy Black, who once
defended William Kennedy Smith.

Most of the drug addicts I write about have public defenders, who are,
usually, fine lawyers, but awfully busy. That's not to say that they
wouldn't recommend their clients check into rehab, but that is seldom
a possibility. We spend our money chasing these addicts down, and
prosecuting them, and then warehousing them. In the last three years,
we've opened three new prisons in Missouri. Rehab? No money.

In his statement Friday, Limbaugh blamed his addiction on back and
neck pain. Fair enough. A lot of fellows I know have had back pain,
and it can be brutal. But the guys at the courthouse, they've got
pain, too. Their problems are like background noise that never goes
away. Except, maybe, when they're high. They don't have maids to go
out and score hillbilly heroin for them. They go out on the streets
looking for the real thing. Or, more often, they opt for a rock of
crack cocaine. It's cheap and effective. Maybe they sell a couple of
rocks to get one for free.

They get caught, and their addiction is not a medical condition. It's
a crime. People like me think it shouldn't be. Legalize drugs, we say.
If you want to be a crackhead, be one. We can't stop you, anyway.

Some people dismiss our arguments, but still take pity on the
crackheads. Liberals, of course. They argue that the penalties for
crack, a drug favored by the poor, are substantially higher than are
the penalties for the drugs favored by our wealthier citizens.

That argument has not carried much weight with conservatives.
Limbaugh, for instance, has ridiculed it. You can be sure that his
enemies will be pointing out that he has maintained that the answer to
any disparity in penalties is not to go soft on the crackheads, but be
tougher with the other law breakers.

He might still believe that. He might demand a long prison term if
he's charged with a crime, but he wouldn't need a Roy Black to make
that demand. I suspect Limbaugh is on our side now, and that he
understands it makes no sense to send drug addicts to prison. I hope
he understands that the same argument should apply to his fellow
addicts of whom I so often write.