JEB BUSH DAUGHTER'S PRIVACY WINS

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP)--A judge ruled Monday that staff members at the drug
rehab center where Gov. Jeb Bush's daughter is receiving treatment do not
have to answer police questions about a piece of crack allegedly found in
her shoe.

Circuit Judge Belvin Perry ruled that federal law protecting a drug
treatment patient's privacy outweighed the interest of police officers in a
criminal investigation.

If the drug treatment counselors were forced to give testimony, then ``all
patients who suffer relapses could be hauled out of treatment programs and
into criminal courts on the whim of a state prosecutor or police
officers,'' the judge wrote.

The state attorney's office issued subpoenas for four staffers at the
Center for Drug-Free Living in Orlando after police received a report from
another patient on Sept. 9 that 25-year-old Noelle Bush had been found with
cocaine in her shoe.

Workers at the Center for Drug-Free Living refused to cooperate, citing
privacy concerns. One staff member wrote a statement for officers but
ripped it up after a supervisor intervened.

Drug treatment counselors elsewhere said a ruling against the Orlando
center would have had a chilling effect on people seeking treatment.

``If people are forced to disclose, everyone would have to re-examine the
kinds of issues that are discussed in the therapeutic arena,'' said Kermit
Dahlen, president and chief executive the Gordon Recovery Center in Sioux
City, Iowa. ``They would have to warn their clients that they shouldn't
talk about anything they wouldn't want disclosed in the future.''

Noelle Bush was put in a court-ordered rehabilitation program in February
shortly after she was arrested at a pharmacy drive-through window for
allegedly trying to buy the anti-anxiety drug Xanax with a fraudulent
prescription.