John Cole on Rush Limbaugh and drugs

I don't often agree with one of John Cole's posts in it's entirety but I do agree with Overzealous Prosecutors and Your Privacy. As much as I would like to see uber hypocrite, Rush Limbaigh, spend a few years in the slammer I can't really agree with the methods the prosecutors are using to try to nail his fat ass. Going fishing in his personal medical records is not acceptable. John has some examples of Limbaugh's hypocrisy and concludes with this on the hypocrisy of our drug laws in general.

Some of you will try to make a distinction between legal drugs and illegal drugs, thus sparing Rush from charges of hypocrisy. I am not buying it. While there certainly is a difference between someone who becomes addicted to drugs because they were using painkillers and then got addicted and someone who chose to use banned substances and becomes addicted, it is, in my opinion, a distinction without much of a difference. The addiction and desperation and the need for society to take care of these individuals remains the same, as does the illegality of both actions.

Furthermore, from my standpoint, the only difference between ‘illegal’ and ‘legal’ drugs is an arbitrary decision that one drug is ‘bad’ while the other is ‘good.’ This is why the debates over medical marijuana are so acrimonious, and why it is disingenuous to run around supporting legislation locking up marijuana users but pretending that the more harmful alcohol is ‘no big deal.’ It is no big deal simply because we decided, for whatever foolish reasons, that it should be legal, and pot illegal.

John doesn't mention the reasons behind the marijuana laws, the bottom line of pharmaceutical and alcoholic beverage companies.