Pharyngula

The real problem is that too many people will use the airports, regardless of how fascistic they become. As private establishments, they have the right to impose all sorts of laws, with only a very few constraints -- so why don't they establish passenger-friendly policies, not to mention effective business plans?

They're supported by public largesse. And people keep using them.

Posted by: Caledonian | June 27, 2006 9:47 AM

No, it's not the law. If the purpose of the search is to detect terrorist threats to the airplane, then it should pay attention to such threats. If it fortuitously turns up a set of unpaid parking tickets, or a bottle of viagra bought from Vanuatu instead of prescribed by a doctor, or for that matter a joint, those do not fall within the parameters of the search and should be ignored. Not every branch of law enforcement enforces all the laws all the time.

Why the heck is viagra a prescription drug anyway? Why, if you're over fifty, do you need an M.D.'s permission to get a hard on?

Posted by: Gerard Harbison | June 27, 2006 9:51 AM

I'm not sure I agree with you here, PZ. I think it's a reasonable expectation that you be searched at airports. We already know of FOUR planes that crashed (and thousands of people died) because inadequate security measures were taken. If the person is only affecting his own safety then that's one thing, but there's hundreds of other people on the plane. Some very basic level of security is necessary, because it doesn't take very much to put so many at risk.

Granted, this doesn't really apply to the Limbaugh situation

, which involved a private plane, but the basic point is the same. Some lethal weapons that could help take down a plane aren't much bigger than a medicine bottle, so while they're searching you for the weapons, and they happen to run across some illegal medication, they have to do something about it ... it's the law.

Posted by: ivyprivy | June 27, 2006 9:55 AM

Will this further fiasco with drugs lose Limbaugh the support of Dole republicans?

Posted by: ivyprivy | June 27, 2006 9:56 AM

This is Customs. This is not airport anti-terrorism searches (that's the jurisdiction of the TSA and happens on departure). This is handling the situation of people bringing in banned goods into this country illegally (and several prescription medications legal in other countries are still not legal here). The search was legal, and we go through it, even if just at a cursortory level, at almost every national border crossing and international flight arrival on the planet.

The 55-year-old arrived at Palm Beach (Fla.) International Airport Monday afternoon from the Dominican Republic with three other people on a private jet and underwent a routine U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service check. -- UPI.

As for "protecting my privacy" his doc "used his own name", that's a bunch of b.s.. If his doc did, its an official ethics violation and even a legal matter (writing a false prescription) even if the doc really felt "privacy" was more ethical.

As for what that blowhard would be doing in the Dominican Republic with a bottle of Viagra in the first place? I'd rather not imagine...

Posted by: Joe Shelby | June 27, 2006 10:03 AM

Well, Joe Shelby brings up a good point ... if this was Customs, then all of the stuff I said was irrelevant anyway. Of course Customs has to deal with drugs that are illegal to possess without a prescription. Just as they have to deal with people bringing in foreign meat products.

Posted by: Cyde Weys | June 27, 2006 10:09 AM

I feel bad for his girlfriend CNN newscaster Daryn Kagan.

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/anchors_reporters/kagan.daryn.html

She's gotta deal with that chemically induced poker.

Posted by: stevie_nyc | June 27, 2006 10:16 AM

Gerard, again, it was Customs, and that is their job, among many other things.

Posted by: gravitybear | June 27, 2006 10:23 AM

A few thoughts (and as few thoughts about rush and viagra as possible);

-The reporting that I have seen mentioned other perscription drugs that may or may not have been limbaughs. It doesn't seem all that odd that if someone came into this county with a quantity of controlled substances and had no obvious perscription for them, that customs might be interested.

-Accotding to reports, the viagra, and possibly other drugs, were perscribed to the doctor that perscribed but in limbaugh's possession.

-What does a single, conservative-republican, christian man need with a with a drug that gives you an erection?

Posted by: ice weasel | June 27, 2006 10:29 AM

That original article wasn't clear, but a great many other articles are quite clear. He arrived from the Dominican Republic in a private plane and the Viagra was detected by Customs. TSA and anti-terrorism policies were not involved at all.

Posted by: Joe Shelby | June 27, 2006 10:34 AM

I apologize for my mistake suggesting TSA was involved.

I stand by my point, that Customs should not be checking prescriptions of small amount of non-controlled substances. And I suspect if this were lipitor and not viagra they wouldn't.
This is all about a prurient interest in other people's sex lives. And I still question why viagra is a prescription drug.

Posted by: Gerard Harbison | June 27, 2006 10:39 AM

PZ I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for maintaining some consistency in viewpoint even when a huge PoS like Limbaugh serves himself up in crosshairs on a platter, and even though you know in circumstances relating to other political issues and situations he would not step up for someone like you on the other side of the aisle with the same consistency. It seems as if fewer and fewer people are inclined to jettison partisanship for the sake of consistent pricniple.

Posted by: myrddin | June 27, 2006 10:46 AM

So he's a hypocrite and a slime-ball...the same fourth amendment that protects me protects him. I have to confess that I've travelled with my prescription meds in one of those daily drug-dosers instead of the original bottle. I'd hate to go to jail for undocumented possession of a diuretic!

As for his pain-killer addiction, pain is undertreated in the US and doctors are prosecuted by the DEA for prescribing effective doses of pain-killers. That's the real pain-killer crime, if you ask me.

Thanks, PZ, for taking a principled stand.

Posted by: tomob | June 27, 2006 10:49 AM

If he gets in trouble for a parole violation (is he on parole now?), I won't feel good about it if he's locked up for something as trivial as one bottle of Viagra.

That perhaps the whole prescription drugs issue is overblown since it associates them too strongly with the truly illegal stuff, I agree, but that's a different debate than the invasion of privacy issue this started with (and how it wasn't since we have no privacy going through customs. Feel free to start it, but also use better examples than Rush to justify how out of whack it all is. ;-)

Similarly, I have a problem with most "absolutist" sentencing policies, both in issues with drug users (not dealers/distributors) and in the public schools (a girl giving a midol to another girl too embarrased to go to the clinic gets expelled? give me a break...).

However, parole agreements are just that - agreements to stop doing the illegal activity you were caught (or agreed) you were doing. He was given his chance. He broke it. Maybe. If his statement that the doc did some privacy concealments is true, fine, indict the doc and the pharmacist for distributing what is on the record as a fraudulent prescription. But if he's lying (again), then he effectively stole or purchased prescription drugs without a prescription, violated his parole, and deserves whatever he gets.

Chances are it'll just be ignored since there are states boundaries issues. He'd be charged or filed in Florida and it would take quite a bit to get California (or whatever state he was actually convicted in in the first place) to acknowledge it as a violation of their agreement. The other state would have to decide if a bottle of viagra is worth flying a lawyer down to Florida to address the situation.

But to assume that the state of Florida is using "the law to silence a political opponent" is a childish and grossly unsupported claim. This has nothing to do with his politics nor his fame. There is no evidence that Customs is the "political opponent" of Limbaugh. There is no evidence that the Sherrif of Palm Beach nor his office is the "political opponent" of Limbaugh.

There is no great political conspiracy machine where some chap sitting in some office can just pick up the phone and say "next time you see him, give Rush a little extra search - his last radio show pissed me off". It doesn't work that way. Law enforcement of this nature, unless its something strongly centralized like the FBI (or TSA's "names" list), is completely local.

Guy gets off a plane from a foreign country known for drug smuggling, guy gets searched. Guy is caught violating his parole by possessing a prescription drug not prescribed to him, guy goes back to court. No political conspiracy needed.

Occam would suggest no political conspiracy required.

Posted by: Joe Shelby | June 27, 2006 11:07 AM

Corrections: Limbaugh's original case was also in Florida, meaning it won't be the legal cross-state mess it might have been and it is much easier for Florida to decide to revoke the parole agreement.

On the other hand, one of the complaints (which he did not plea guilty to) was "doctor shopping" - bouncing from doc to doc 'til he finds one willing to prescribe him whatever he asks for without question, and acquiring this prescription may have been proof that he's been doing that after all. The Florida courts took him at his word (the rest of us are smarter than that) and he violated it.

Posted by: Joe Shelby | June 27, 2006 11:17 AM

If the name on a prescription bottle does not match the name on the passport, both security and customs have a right to know what is going on. Is the person truly who he says he is? You have to look at the paperwork, because that's one of the ways you catch the bad guys -- by looking for discrepancies. And if the guy looks like Rush? Doesn't matter, you don't give somebody a pass just because you think you recognize him from TV.

Of course, this has no bearing on the publicity and possible charges, but it does explain to my satisfaction why the issue arose in the first place. It *is* a security issue.

Posted by: xebecs | June 27, 2006 11:19 AM

I fail to see why this isn't an issue. If customs regularily searches private planes coming back from international flights and this isn't a targeted politically based search, then if they find something illegal it is NO different than if they found one joint in my pocket and charged me. If he broke the law and the very people employed to enforce the law are the ones who discover thin it is there duty to follow through.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 27, 2006 11:27 AM

Joe Shelby: In practice, couldn't airport security just notify police in the appropriate jurisdiction who would make the arrest while the flight was delayed? If so, then any search could be used for law enforcement even though the evidence from that particular search might not be admissible in court. I don't want airports turned into an on-going fishing expedition for every crime and misdemeanor, though I want air travel to be safe. Jurisdictions may prevent the airport police from making an arrest (I'm taking your word for it) but they don't really prevent them from taking equivalent actions based on arbitrary searches.

Posted by: PaulC | June 27, 2006 11:30 AM

Rush copped a plea in which he promised to "refrain from any violation of any law". And this is a guy who said, ten years ago, that "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".

My sympathy for Mr. "talent on loan from God" is strangely muted.

Posted by: Seth Gordon | June 27, 2006 11:32 AM

RevBDC: i think the issue now is what will the State of Florida do now that they caught him at this.

IMO, if he broke the law and it violates any of the terms he worked out with his previous shenanigans then he should pay the price for both the second degree misdemeanor of the prescription and for whatever consequences he faces on the doctor shopping crap (on which it looks from the outside that he got preferential treatment).

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 27, 2006 11:38 AM

Sorry, I won't waste a single molecule of O2 defending Limbaugh. If he's been treated bad by The Man, then he can go straight to the end of my sympathy line. At its current length and rate of progress, I can probably find the time for him in a couple of thousand years.

Let Rush's blithering dittoheads defend him. Advocacy is not fair or objective, and I do not owe him anything.

Posted by: PaulC | June 27, 2006 11:43 AM

Thanks Seth for clearing that up for me.

I don't know how it is in other states, but sometimes here in California doctors will give away drugs in sampler packages to their patients - drugs that the manufacturers have dropped off to the doctors for free, in order to generate prescriptions.

I don't know if this practice is legal or not, but it seems common for a doctor to give a sampler package of muscle relaxants to get you through the next couple of days after a weekend of playing touch football.

Perhaps the doctors issued the drugs in their own name to prevent 'embarrassing' Rush (oops), and if that's the case then technically I think he is following his parole. Even if his doctor gave him a sampler package of Viagra, I think he'd still be within the terms of his parole and should be fine legally. Morally he's still a hypocrite.

But if doctors named on the bottle claim no knowledge, if no doctor actually gave him these, then Rush has broken his parole and should be hauled in before the court.

Posted by: calladus | June 27, 2006 11:47 AM

PZ missed the point, Google Dominican Republic and SEX. Famous for underage boy sex......

Posted by: jmruzik | June 27, 2006 11:53 AM

Forgot to mention, it's great to see someone who has argued for the fascism you dislike actually get nailed by this.

He should be overpublicized that he got nailed for such a minor crime. It needs to be reported more and more so even fat old white guys realize their rights are at risk too. What a better posterboy for excesses of security and law enforcement that fat old white Rush Limbaugh getting hassled for his penis pills?

Posted by: quitter | June 27, 2006 11:58 AM

jmruzik,

I was just thinking that there was a trend.

Rush:
o Is anti-drug - but he does use illegal drugs
o Is pro-marriage - but divorced several times
o Is pro-abstinence out of wedlock - but is going on sex tours

Does the next step in this (completely unscientific) trend have something to do with his anti-gay stance?

Posted by: calladus | June 27, 2006 12:03 PM

I noticed that Salon's War Room http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/ had a similar take to PZ's on this story. I halfway agree: it's not much of a story and we look desperate trying to trump it up. But if it causes Limbaugh any distress then so much the better.

No, hypocrisy isn't a crime, but neither is Schadenfreude. I also don't consider it a moral failing to refuse assistance to others quite capable of helping themselves. Limbaugh has plenty of people to defend him already.

Posted by: PaulC | June 27, 2006 12:22 PM

Agreed, hypocrisy is not a crime.

But Rush and conservatives who agree with him have claimed the moral high ground for years. This lack of morality by someone who claims to be better than his opponents because of his morality needs to be pointed out.

Sure, liberals have also claimed moral high ground, and also get exposed for not walking the walk. Do you think that because we forbear to point out Rush's hypocrisy that conservatives will give us a free pass on our next screw-up? It's not gonna happen.

If we all ignore each other's hypocrisy, it won't just go away, it'll get worse.

And if Rush has violated the terms of his parole, it isn't hypocrisy. Personally I'm content to let the court decide if he's going back to jail.

Posted by: calladus | June 27, 2006 12:42 PM

Call me a ghoul, but I do hope for the end of Limbaugh's career and influence. I'm disappointed that the hearing problem didn't do it, and I'm disappointed that the oxycontin abuse didn't do it.

Now I don't approve of issuing a Coulter-like fatwa against Limbaugh, and if something really terrible happened to him and he were to suffer, I could extend some level of empathy. I don't want him to live in pain, lose his money, or have his family and friends abandon him. I do want him to shut up. It won't solve every problem out there, but it's a step in the right direction. I'll take whatever set of self-inflicted circumstances causes his career to end and breathe a great sigh of relief over it. I sure as f--- won't shed a tear; it might even be worth popping a bottle of cheap bubbly over.

Posted by: PaulC | June 27, 2006 12:54 PM

Umm. Isn't checking Rush for an illegal drug prescription at customs kinda like checking Tommy Chong's bags on his way back from Jamaica... their reputation preceeds them.

I sense that viagra is recreational drug for some. And it's not supposed to be treated as such... just like oxycotin. You may not need the prescription but you may enjoy it's effect on you. I don't think doctors are prescribing anti genital wart drugs in their own name to spare their patients embarassment.

Posted by: stevie_nyc | June 27, 2006 12:57 PM

Speaking of Tommy Chong, where's the outrage? Here's a guy who did time in the pen for selling glass pipes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Chong

Posted by: PaulC | June 27, 2006 1:02 PM

Isn't there a black market for viagra?

Posted by: stevie_nyc | June 27, 2006 1:14 PM

Note that as far as I can see from any of the news accounts, Rush was released without being charged. (though he was held for at least three hours, I can't find any explanation of why - it isn't clear, for example, that he was being detained on illegal drug possession charges, since possessing Viagra without a valid prescription is only a second-degree misdemeanor. That "double checking his identity" theory may actually hold water)

This means that the more this story gets played, the more Rush gets to play the double card of both "victim of oppression" and "thoroughly vindicated". I'm sure this is a wonderful opportunity for him - what conservative gasbag wouldn't love to have a reason to yell "help, help, I'm being oppressed!" and feel self-righteous about it? (while avoiding all the nasty consequences of actual oppression)

Any idea who it is who wrote the wire copy that every news site seems to have as their main source for the story? I'd almost believe that Rush (or his lawyer) hyped the story up hoping for some kind of public backlash against the authorities so that Rush's plea agreement wouldn't go away.

Posted by: Daniel Martin | June 27, 2006 1:23 PM

He is so going to play the victim.

Wonder if anyone in the Dominican Republic knows what he was doing there.

He could of been there for a Cigar conference or something.

Hey, if he was detained for 3 hours to answer some questions and that's all that happened... the story really is bigger than the facts.

Posted by: stevie_nyc | June 27, 2006 1:34 PM

They knew he was coming... to the Dominican Republic.

http://www.drsol.info/forums/portal.php?topic_id=1377

Posted by: stevie_nyc | June 27, 2006 1:44 PM

PZ, I'm a little confused about your argument. Are you saying that anyone should be able to carry around an illegal bottle of prescription drugs, or just Viagra, specifically? It certainly sounds like this had the appearance of an illegal prescription, having someone else's name on the bottle and all. Or are you saying that Customs should ignore such prescription violations completely?

If a nameless convicted drug addict was intercepted at Customs with a similar bottle, detained for a few hours while they looked into his story, and then released and not charged, I'd say that the response was reasonable, proportionate, and appropriate. I don't see why that changes because it's Limbaugh.

Posted by: Narc | June