RAIDS ON RUSH ARE DETAILED

Warrants: He Broke Drug Laws

West Palm Beach, Fla. - A Palm Beach County law enforcement task force
investigating whether Rush Limbaugh illegally obtained prescription
painkillers seized the talk show host's medical records from three doctors,
according to search warrants made public yesterday.

Authorities are looking into whether the conservative commentator violated
the state's "doctor shopping" law by getting doctors to write him
overlapping narcotic prescriptions and failing to tell them about each other.

Records from one pharmacy near Limbaugh's Palm Beach mansion show that
during a six-month period in 2003, he picked up hundreds of addictive
painkiller pills prescribed by four local doctors, court documents state.

From March to September, Limbaugh picked up 1,733 hydrocodone pills, 90
OxyContin pills, 50 Xanax tablets and 40 pills of Kadian (time-release
morphine), search warrant records show. The court documents indicate that
sometimes less than a week would lapse between him getting different
doctors' prescriptions.

"Doctor shopping" is a third-degree felony under Florida law, punishable by
up to 5 years in prison.

Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer said yesterday that
Limbaugh still is under investigation and "is presumed innocent at this time."

The Nov. 25 searches - two at the Jupiter Outpatient Surgery Center and a
third at a West Palm Beach doctor's office - happened a week after Limbaugh
came back on the air following a stint in a drug-rehabilitation program.
Limbaugh admitted in early October he was addicted to painkillers, a week
after media reports first surfaced that his former housekeeper had supplied
him with OxyContin and other powerful prescription drugs.

A few hours before the search warrants were filed yesterday, Limbaugh
alerted his listeners that he had just learned his medical records had been
seized. Limbaugh read a statement written by his attorney denying any
wrongdoing and saying "what should be a responsible investigation is
looking more and more like a fishing expedition.