ariticle

I hope this url works, I thought this kinda interesting:

Scoring some Vike just a quick stroll away

Joan Ryan Tuesday, October 14, 2003

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The guy at U.N. Plaza yesterday afternoon said I needed to go to Jones and Golden Gate, near St. Anthony Dining Room. That's where I could find Vicodin or OxyContin.

"Good luck,'' he said.

I had never bought drugs off the street. But I wanted to see if it was as easy as the drug rehab folks had told me. I had called a few of them yesterday morning to talk about radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh's addiction to OxyContin. He reportedly has been taking up to 30 a day, buying them with cigar boxes stuffed with cash in a parking lot from his former maid. He told his listeners on Friday that he was entering rehab after more than four years of addiction.

"There are a large number of people addicted to Vicodin and OxyContin who won't come into public clinics for help," said San Francisco's Dr. David Smith, considered one of the grandfathers of addiction medicine. It seems Limbaugh is the most famous of a fast-growing population of prescription-drug junkies: An estimated 9 million people 12 and older used prescription drugs for nonmedical reasons in 1999, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse.

I walked up to Golden Gate and hung a right, passing the vacant-eyed men and women who slump against fences and buildings that line the sidewalk. When I reached St. Anthony's, I lingered at the corner for a moment, sizing up the situation. I approached two wiry, bedraggled men I overheard talking about nickel bags.

"Excuse me,'' I said in a low voice. "Do you know where I can find some Vicodin or OxyContin?''

The ease of buying the drugs off the Internet has fueled the boom. But it's even easier, I was told, to buy them on the street, which is essentially what Limbaugh did.

So I found myself at 2:30 yesterday afternoon, in broad daylight, in the heart of the Tenderloin trying to score drugs. I had a cute red purse, a red Gap T-shirt, black slacks and black-heeled sandals. I couldn't have looked more like a suburban mom if I had been wearing a tennis skirt.

The two men didn't hesitate in answering.

"This street is just weed,'' one said loudly, as if he were a sales clerk in a department store. "Next street is prescription drugs.''

He pointed up Jones toward Turk Street, where other men loitered, huddling in twos or threes then moving on. I sidled up to one and again asked about Vicodin and OxyContin.

"Vike!'' he shouted to a man on a bicycle a few yards up the street.

Suddenly Vike and three other guys closed in. "How much you need?'' Vike asked. He said they cost $3 for each 500 mg tablet. Another man elbowed his way to my side, opening his hands to reveal dozens of oval white pills. "I sell for $2,'' he said.

Vike barked at him to get away.

Of course, I had no clue how much I needed. I hadn't thought to find out what a reasonable dose of Vicodin might be.

"I don't know,'' I said. "It's for my brother.'' (God forbid any of these men thought I was looking for myself.)

"Is he an addict?'' one of the bystanders asked. I nodded. "Eight to 10, '' he said.

None of the men asked if I was a cop. Vike straddled his bike and just asked how many. I bought seven. Why seven? I have no idea. I reached into my purse for my wallet and walked toward a doorway, obviously more uncomfortable than my seller with completing a drug transaction at the curb of a busy street in midafternoon.

Vike handed me the seven tablets, telling me they were from a pharmacy and thus "safe,'' and I handed him $21 and walked away.

The entire transaction, from talking to the first guy at U.N. Plaza to slipping the tablets into my red purse, took about 25 minutes. I hadn't even used up my entire lunch break. The rehab doctor was right: Feeding an addiction is easy if you have the money. It's not so easy if you don't.

And that's the difference between people like Limbaugh and the addict on the street. The street addict begs and scams for his drug money. Folks like Limbaugh go to the ATM. Both groups are junkies. Both are buying drugs illegally. But only one group ends up in jail.

That, perhaps more than the many other social problems of drugs, is what Limbaugh's addiction could shine a light on. He has been famously harsh on drug users, saying, as a typical example, "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.''

Now, one presumes, he might have a deeper understanding of the complexities of addiction: It knows no race or class or political affiliation. There aren't good drug addictions and bad drug addictions.

Limbaugh probably never worried about being arrested. I certainly didn't yesterday. Buying drugs is quick and easy when you have a pocket full of money. And it seems going to a rehab center instead of jail is even easier. But no one, Limbaugh least of all, should think that the guy slumped against a building on Golden Gate Avenue is any different from the radio talk show host or physician or ad executive who pops 30 pills to get through the day.

They might have descended into their addictions from different roads, but they ended up in the same hell.

E-mail Joan Ryan at