SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL

It came as something of a surprise to hear conservative talk-show host
Rush Limbaugh confess an addiction to painkillers, but his drug of
choice does make a curious kind of sense. Of course he'd consume a
substance that gave him an irrationally euphoric worldview and made
him peculiarly unfeeling--it's staunch conservatives who aren=92t
addicted to painkillers who have some explaining to do.

More disturbing, but even less surprising, was the reaction among
liberals to Limbaugh's shockingly dignified announcement on October 10
that he suffered from addiction and was taking a 30-day leave from his
show to seek treatment. A list of comments Limbaugh had made regarding
drug abuse over the decade and a half he's had his nationally
syndicated show quickly made the e-mail rounds, and freelance and
professional pundits alike chortled with schadenfreude as they
compared current headlines with such hyperbolic Rushisms as =93We have
laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing
drugs =85 so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought
to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent
up.=94

Al Franken--who is both a critic of Limbaugh and a left-wing
counterpart--told reporters, =93I'm looking forward to the perp walk.=94
Online, as usual, commentators were less restrained: =93Rush Limbaugh is
a big fat junkie,=94 wrote one poster to the liberal Democratic
Underground Web site--www.democraticunderground.com.

Cries from the right for sympathy--and preemptive defenses against
charges of hypocrisy--erupted with just as much predictability. Many
attempted to draw a distinction between Limbaugh's past outbursts
against illegal drug use and his current addiction to legal (albeit
illegally obtained) drugs.

=93From a moral standpoint, there's a difference between people who go
out and seek a high and get addicted and the millions of Americans
dealing with pain who inadvertently get addicted,=94 arch-conservative
Gary Bauer told Newsweek--as if Limbaugh's costly habit was some kind
of accident that crept up on him unawares, kind of like how your bills
at the end of the month always seem higher than they should be. =93Let's
see, heating, electricity, gas, TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS on pain pills!
Geez, how'd that happen?=94

Bauer's predictable remarks were all the more offensive for the tacit
premise of contemporary drug policy they left magisterially intact: If
Limbaugh's out-of-control painkiller jones was an understandable
overextension of a standard prescription, well, then, the misery of a
heroin addict has to be simple justice.

Bauer's comments are especially ludicrous in light of what Limbaugh
had to say. =93I am not making any excuses. You know, over the years
athletes and celebrities have emerged from treatment centers to great
fanfare and praise for conquering great demons. They are said to be
great role models and examples for others,=94 he said. =93Well, I am no
role model. I refuse to let anyone think I am doing something great
here, when there are people you never hear about, who face long odds
and never resort to such escapes. They are the role models.=94

I feel sorry for Limbaugh. And I find myself frustrated with those who
seem to be enjoying the spectacle of his decline. To fling charges of
hypocrisy at Limbaugh now, while it may light a smug little glow in
most leftists, casts a dark shadow on the argument so many of us have
made for so many years--that addiction is a disease, that treatment and
not prison, or public ridicule, is the best response to it.

Focusing on Limbaugh's tragedy also distracts from the true villain of
this little morality play: Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of
Limbaugh's beloved =93little blues=94 (as he called them in e-mails to his
maid/dealer). Purdue makes more than $1 billion a year off OxyContin
and has largely resisted pleas from drug abuse advocates to make its
bestselling narcotic less addictive and more difficult to resell. In
the face of its huge profits, Purdue's $10,000 =93grants=94 to local
police forces to help them launch sting operations and even its
multi-million ad campaign to =93promote awareness about prescription
drug abuse=94 seem like window dressing--which they probably are. The
company also has successfully fought off several dozen class-action
lawsuits seeking damages for what they claim was the manufacturer's
foreknowledge of the pills' potential for misuse.

Criticism of the company's marketing tactics date back a few
years--they appealed directly to pain patients, and thus expanded the
drug's potential market much further beyond the cancer patients for
whom it had been approved. Purdue Pharma has pledged to do better, but
just last January, the Food and Drug Administration cited the company
for placing ads that =93omit and minimize the serious safety risks
associated with OxyContin and promote it for uses beyond which have
been proven safe and effective.=94

Thanks in large part to these kinds of marketing practices, addiction
to prescription drugs has become one of the fastest-growing categories
of abuse in the country.

About 2.6 million people misuse painkillers. I have no doubt that many
of them are conservatives and that even more are assholes of one sort
another. But I think we'd all like each one of them treated with
dignity and fairness. We'd also like each one of them to be able to
afford, as Limbaugh can, a luxury in-patient treatment program. Let's
hope Limbaugh emerges from rehab with some sense of how lucky he is.