Suddenly, everyone is talking about drug addiction. Oops...make that prescription pain medication addiction. Like there's a difference.

Oh, I've heard all the arguments: Rush Limbaugh didn't steal from anyone to pay for his habit (actually, we don't know if this is true, but we'll assume it is); he began using drugs because of physical pain; he was using prescription drugs, not street drugs.

Well, for many years, I treated drug addicts, so I know a thing or two about this subject, and the desperate arguments being screamed by ditto-heads are ridiculous.

First, Limbaugh may not have taken the grocery money so he could meet his dealer, but he had a dealer. Okay, so it was his housekeeper. Do ditto-heads think she was manufacturing OxyContin in her kitchen? She was buying it on the street, from real dealers, who engage in such activities as maiming and murder. And they work for drug kingpins who engage in murder, blackmail, prostitution, and child endangerment.

They were street drugs, no doubt about it. Illegal drugs. This is how it generally goes down: Someone gets a prescription for a pain medication. After some time passes, he notices that the drug not only eases his physical pain, but also dulls his emotional pain. Soon--sometimes consciously, sometimes not--he's taking the drug even when he isn't experiencing physical pain.

Next comes addiction. The user visits many different doctors and gets many prescriptions. When that trick ceases to work, he forges prescriptions and steals drugs from friends' medicine cabinets. When those tactics become inadequate, he turns to a dealer, just like heroin and crack addicts.

This explanation is not an attempt to detract sympathy from Limbaugh's condition, but to clarify that he is indeed a drug addict, just like all the other drug addicts.

He is also a world-class hypocrite.