Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.
Nothing’s proven, the sources so far are less than sterling, but if it is true, he needs to get help ASAP.
I’m not a big fan (I don’t hate him, but I’m not an avid fan either), so his presence or absense on the airwaves isn’t going to impact me that much. I just would hate to hear how he’d died or gotten seriously ill from an overdose of painkillers. I don’t wish that on anyone.
What I’m wondering is this:
Are there any charges pending against Wilma Cline? Did she go to prosecutors on her own, or did she have other motivation? I.E., is she naming Rush to save herself?
Just the
NY Daily News with coorboration from reuters
I’m not saying the case is proven, just saying that if the story is true, there should be pretty darn good evidence presented (eventually) that the story is true, which will hopefully prevent Rush from claiming that he’s just being unfairly persecuted by the liberal media or some such.
Care to cite the last time the Enquirer ran an Elvis/space alien type story, I’d love to see it. Yeah, it’s the Enquirer, they can publish gossip as fact, but it’s not like its Weekly World News. The Enquirer is right, occasionally.
-lv
Yipes.
My wife got a one-time oxycodone prescription for pain relief following some oral surgery. She didn’t use the pills (or maybe took just one or two), and passed the bottle along to me because I sometimes have very severe pain flare-ups due to a pair of bad disks in my lower back.
Well, I did a little Internet searching on the stuff … and after finding out about its extremely strong addictive properties, I immediately tossed that bottle in the trash.
That is some wicked stuff.
(I feel strange posting this in a thread where QtM, M.D., has already posted. No, my wife and I don’t make a habit of sharing prescription drugs …)
What a waste.
On another note, there’s a connection between use of Vicodin and hearing loss. Hmmm…
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=vicodin+hearing+loss&btnG=Google+Search
Say what?
No it ain’t the WWN, but they’re both owned by the same publisher. In fact, all six major tabloids in the U.S. are owned by one publisher.
Does anyone know if Rush took one pill for every “Bill Clinton is a pothead” slam he ever issued?
a much bigger Hmmmm… is that all those links are dated (the ones that are dated) after the news about Rush came out OR the ones that are dated before the news report the 2 items are unrelated (the page talks about Vicodin in one part, and in another part, possibly talking about another drug, mentions hearing loss - hence makes the google top 10 list.)
I have to say it sounds very fishy, drug quantity is way too high, Rush could have gotten these through harder to trace methods, His show might have suffered.
Just a preliminary feeling, but it smells like they have something on him here.
Getting hooked on pain pills would also explain the dramatic weight loss he’s had over the last few years. But the amount of pills sounds really very very high. Of course, I’m not a doctor, and I know people can build up tolerances and junkies regularly take doses that would kill someone who isn’t habituated. But still…hundreds of pills a week? Why isn’t he dead? And even if he wasn’t dead, wouldn’t he be stoned out of his gourd 24/7? Are those amounts of pills possible?
Do pain pills result in weight loss? I’ve heard that about uppers, but not pain killers.
Opiate addicts (i.e. users of oxycontin, morphine, heroin, codiene, hydrocodone, vicodin etc) can build up an enormous tolerance. I once met a physician who at the peak of his addiction was injecting over 2 grams of morphine IV a day! That literally would put an elephant into respiratory arrest and send it to the lost graveyard! So yes, I would be completely unamazed to hear of an addict taking the sorts of amounts being ascribed to Rush.
And anyone on a steady diet of high-dose opiates will tend to get skinny. Opiates will depress the appetite and slow the GI tract and cause an AMAZING amount of constipation, which also tends to depress the appetite. Hunger pangs are quieted quite nicely with another fix.
Perhaps we should cut him some slack. If he was wacked out of his head it would explain alot of the things he has said over the years.
Having had a lot of fairly disturbing experience with prescription and non-prescription opioid users over the last few years, I have to say that 4350 pills does not sound excessive for a wealthy addict, assuming he had already been taking opioids for a reasonable period of time. There’s apparently no limit to the degree of tolerance that one can develop to opioids. For instance …
One of the people I interviewed for my book (a 52-year-old male who reported that he was 5’10" and weighed approximately 95kg) said that at the peak of his addiction, he was taking over 15,000mg of morphine per day – where 10mg is usually considered a pretty good-sized dose for a non-tolerant adult.
Another guy I talked to (a 36-year-old man who refused to tell me his height or weight) said that he would take three 80mg oxycodone tablets every 1.5-2 hours while awake; he told me that his record was over 4,300mg in one day.
Spiff: your concerns about oxycodone are valid, but the latest studies indicate that it, and other opioids, are not addictive when used as directed. Several studies have concluded that, among patients who were given opioids for the first time to treat acute pain and who used the opioids as directed, addictive behavior results in less than 0.05% of cases.
Qadgop the Mercotan: I’ve definitely seen people lose weight on opioids, but it’s not anywhere near a universal phenomenon. People who are illegally abusing opioids will often tend to lose weight, but functional addicts (such as those on methadone maintenance) who take care of themselves and avoid the horrible constipation problems associated with opiates often tend to gain weight. Many of the people I spoke to speculated that they were gaining weight due to some kind of “metabolism slowing” caused specifically by methadone, but the medical professionals I spoke to tended to discount this explanation. From my observations, they were all pouring a lot of sugar in their coffee and eating a lot of sugary foods, which may have had something to do with it.
My general observations on this subject were that when people couldn’t really afford their addiction, they often chose to spend whatever money they could acquire on more opioids instead of food, medical/dental care, etc. But as long as they were able to afford both opioids and food, they would feed themselves adequately, and often more-than-adequately.
William S. Burroughs describes one of the symptoms of being a junkie as “requiring the surgical equivalent of an apple corer.”:eek:
Some people, such as myself, can metabolize drugs rapidly. If I go into the dentist, he has to dope me up pretty good, and then he has only a short period of time in which to work before the stuff starts wearing off.
If this is true, I wonder if Limbaugh will make a similar claim as Chevy Chase did (i.e. after being treated for a legitamate medical condition, Chase got hooked on pain pills, nevermind the fact that he’s admitted that everyone was using drugs heavily on SNL when he was a cast member)?
So what does that prove? With your statement you insinuate that he must be guilty.
You’re a lawyer. At least pretend to act like one.
Airman, he linked.
You are the one inferring a conclusion.
Airman, the link I believe was in response to an original post attacking the claim on the grounds that it had been printed in a tabloid, which also prints stories about Elvis and flying saucers.
Minty’s quote makes it very clear that these allegations, true or not, are not the product of some idiot editor at a trash tabloid.