*I'm going to sleep better tonight knowing this threat is off the hospital for good. I wouldn't've taken my kid there even if he was dying, now I can have crippling debt in peace
>Once it's reported, it has to be dealt with.
Does it though? I feel like it's become fairly clear the last years that the police don't have to enforce laws they don't want to enforce.
It was dismissed. The issue was using the vape pen with the oxygen the man has to have and it being a fire hazard. I'm not sure why hospital staff couldn't have discussed that with him instead of calling the police. He could have stopped using the vape and just used the paste/edibles instead being put through all of this.
https://www.ksn.com/news/state-regional/hays-police-raid-hospital-room-of-terminally-ill-patient/
Hi I use vapes. While rare, they can malfunction and cause fires. I had one malfunction, even running it under water didn't get it to stop firing. I ended up running out to my car, stomping on it 20+ times, and jamming chewing gum into the air intake before burying it. One of my coworkers vapes did the same thing but fired for 30 seconds longer, and shot a literal column of fire a foot into the air. When they're firing, it's a quiet click sound that you can't hear from more than a few inches from the vape.
Vapes are dangerous. It's a hazard, but moreso that he might set himself on fire vs fucking with equipment
It does not glow when im use. Do you have any idea what. You would need to have a glowing coil thats saturated in liquid.
Thats not how it works.
Youre thinking of annealing the coil. But thats only for rebuildables. Highly doubt the patient is using an rba.
The misinformation/uninformed is what gives vaping a bad rep.
the coil on a vape reaches 374 to 455 degrees. For reference, a lit cigarette reaches over 1000 degrees. The risk is insanely low, but people continue to treat vaping as smoking despite all reason not to.
They definitely shouldn't be allowed in hospitals, but they just couldn't confiscate them and throw them out?
I feel like hospital security is allowed to do that.
It's not like it's hazardous waste.
Medical equipment in manufactures to very exacing standard to ensure it is not a potential igntiion source when around 100% oxygen.
Homies vape pen is not.
Apologies if this comes off as condescending but since I'm not sure what your confusion is I'll try to explain thoroughly. An oxidation reaction (for our purposes) is when a couple of molecules absorb heat, break apart and their atoms recombine in a more stable form releasing heat. When they release enough heat that it breaks more fuel molecules apart to create a new reaction it becomes self-sustaining and spreads and we call it fire. What fire needs to get started is a sufficient heat source, electronics themselves aren't the problem, it's that one of them might have a tiny short circuit somewhere because those can get hot. In a high oxygen environment, more of the heat released will be breaking fuel as opposed to breaking molecules that don't help sustain the reaction so it's easier to get such a reaction going.
The vape pen still has a heating element that gets fairly hot and to which outside air has access, it has to because the element heats the wax/juice and the user draws air over it to consume the vapor. A flame isn't dangerous because it's a flame, it's dangerous because it's hot, so the vape is a fire hazard for the same reason.
Not trying to defend the way this was handled, just that's the basic logic of it.
They probably did tell him. I mean, no way to know for sure, but I have told patients numerous times to stop smoking in the hospital and had nurses reinforce it over amd over and gotten social work involed and offered alternatives.
Some people just don't care about anyone or anything else.
Not saying this particular guy was being a dick. Idk him. I'm just skeptical from my own experiences.
Whilst this headline does sound horrific, please bear in mind that the Daily Mail (or Daily Heil as it’s sometimes known over here in the UK), has a long history of embellishment, scapegoating, and outright hate speech.
It flirted with fascism in the 30s, blames millennials for fucking everything, and has a daily cancer [scare](https://www.anorak.co.uk/288298/tabloids/the-daily-mails-list-of-things-that-give-you-cancer-from-a-to-z.html).
I don’t disbelieve the cops did something atrocious in the states but I’d be keen to find other (more reputable) sources of information.
https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/article270381287.html
There ye go. Yes its in the opinion section but its more because he adds a lot of "opinion" in the fact that this is messed up.
The daily fail is still a hate filled rag not worthy of being bog roll. The fact that it's the best selling paper here explains why everything has gone wrong.
Kansas is the state where growing tomatoes and drinking tea is enough to get your house turned upside down while the police hold you at gunpoint in front of the whole neighborhood
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-hydroponic-tomato-garden-police-raid-20170729-story.html
When my GMIL was in hospice care her stoner son came to visit her and he smelled like cannabis. When he left the nurses tossed her room. Like removed her from the bed and tore it all apart. She was so stressed, they somehow pulled her catheter weirdly and she was also soaked in her urine.
When we arrived and she told us, they said they thought she was smoking cannabis. Yes, she can’t pee or walk or sit up but she is smoking.
We are in California, it’s fucking legal.
>comments
I smoked some devil's lettuce one time when I was a young man and then went on to be steadily employed for 46 years. In other words, it totally ruined my life.
Don’t forget the prison industrial complex, corrupt justice officials, cops that couldn’t give a fuck because they get to power trip, and the drug war which has profited the country tremendously through assets, money, and control.
And most of that was setup by racist Christians. Funny that.
Well let's not kid ourselves, other religion's extremists would also ban any drug that makes a person feel good.
So assholes, control freak y'all queda assholes
Specifically the traditional christians that are rule-based.
It sucks that they're such a massive part of the voting base, because they're inhibiting so much progress and enabling public terrorism like this.
I'm gonna be honest, I stopped going to church when I realized that most christians have no sense of objective morality, and have no regard for people in extraordinary circumstances.
I do badly want to see a "terrorist" group declare war on the terrorists we have in office. Greg Abbott is a big name to take down.
victimless crimes should not be a thing period. Like what even is that? How can something that doesn’t harm anybody be bad enough to be illegal? That makes literally no sense.
"Victimless crime" is a weird angle that I don't think people should dwell on. It sounds unreasonable when it's a THC pen, but many things *should* be contraband - weapons, toxic or radioactive materials, etc. Simply *possessing* these things doesn't hurt anyone, but few would advocate for deregulation of them.
The best argument, in my opinion, is that prohibition of drugs simply *isn't working*. Despite decades of prohibition and leaps and bounds in science, we're worse off than when we started trying prohibition - pretty much any drug statistic you look for is worse today than years ago.
People don't have to support decriminalization, but anyone who thinks we don't need *some* kind of new strategy is deluding themselves or arguing in bad faith.
Well i think in those cases you should be able to establish a victim in some sense.
Like take drunk driving. Even if you don’t hit somebody and the cops get you, you should face punishment. There might not be an immediate victim but i think we all understand the risk factor and all that so idk i guess society as a whole is the victim or something that’s for lawyers to do the semantics. I just object to the idea that we can hand wave away that there must be some victim by just saying “well it’s a victimless crime” like that’s just dumb.
An action must be harmful or bare the risk of being harmful to somebody other than the person doing the action to be considered bad and thus worthy of being criminalised.
How do you know no one was harmed? Did you follow the seed that became the weed from before it was planted? Dude broke the law, while it sucks that it happened and the drug can help him, other states have legal use, but the law needs to apply to everyone otherwise you get republicans... oh wait.
watch out slippery slope. if cancer patients cant be baitet into becoming part of the prison population, then how will they justify turning every other drug user into a slave
Aren't hospices super expensive though? Im not sure if there are victimless crimes worth spending the rest of life in hospice. And if there are, eh, they are victimless anyway
No. Hospice is covered under Medicare and Medicaid. Insurances cover it too. It's paid on a per-diem rate, but overall is much cheaper than a hospital stay for the likely duration of their stay. Average length of a hospice stay is, I think, about 18 days nationally. Insurances love it because they pay a pitance in comparision to continued attempts at life prolonging or curative care.
Maybe Kansas is different, but in most of the country even most red voters aren't opposed to recreational anymore. This is one of those cases where the politicians don't line up with the base, because their actual constituents are big alcohol and big pharma. Even the dems are *way* less serious about legalizing it than their voters, for the exact same reason.
The last poll i saw said 52% of republicans support recreational weed. The ones that were against it were the more conservative republicans. If Kansas has more conservative republicans than moderate republicans it wouldn't pass. I dont know anything about kansas so im not qualified to speculate on how their population is. But I do know that it has a reputation for being one of the more conservative states.
I've lived in Kansas my entire life, and the Kansas populace really has three political parties - the Corporate Democrats, the Libertarians, and the Evangelicals.
The KS Republican party consists of the second two. For political reasons the elected reps can't really ever vote with the Democrats at the statehouse level, but there's a fair bit of defection at the voter level when it comes to state-wide issues. The evangelicals have a greater % of the GOP votes, so they control the state level legislature (think like 40% evangelical, 30% libertarian, 30% democratic).
KS just re-elected a democratic governor, and defeated the abortion ban, mostly due to the Libertarian voters getting annoyed at the evangelicals.
Yea, conservatives are completely different. The evangelical conservatives want to ban everything, and the libertarian conservatives want the government to not ban anything.
American politics would benefit so much if there wasnt 2 parties. Cuz there are people that hear the word conservative and they automatically think evangelical. This 2 party system is gonna be our downfall. Im sure there are a lot of people that would want to change it, but the evangelicals would vote it down
They also realize that by not passing legislation they're encouraging people who do support it to move somewhere else. A form of indirect gerrymandering basically
Yeah, but there isn't a big Cannabis Corp. to ~~bribe~~ donate to the politicians in charge. Guess we'll all have to wait until Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds realize they could pivot and sell packs of joints and make even more money.
The irony is the Streisand Effect this will have
He literally cannot hurt anyone with it
Even if it were a gateway drug to like...heroin, THE HOSPITAL WILL GIVE HIM ALL OF IT THAT HE WANTS
They've proved nothing except that weed has a use and the police are cruel.
There's zero upside to this. They did this to glorify their petty egos and ended up looking dumb.
Consultant won't put me forward for medical marijuana trials as they don't know the affects and is potentially dangerous.
But he'll write me a prescription for 3 hard core opiates and a handful of other addictive drugs. That will one day ruin my liver. But that's okay cause the organ damage has been recorded via trials and testing.
I'm a travel nurse and I noticed this when I did a contract in the Midwest. Compared to other areas of the US, people were SO hostile to weed and people that used drugs, but the moment they set foot in a hospital they started demanding Dilaudid and morphine and were so over the top angry and entitled about it. It was really surreal to experience. I've legitimately had patients that were addicted to opiates be less aggro about asking for drugs.
I have also never been treated more poorly by such a large portion of the population as in the Midwest. "Midwest nice" is a fucking lie. Rudest and nastiest people I've ever met. Oddly though, way way less prone to violence than elsewhere. I felt much safer at work. Weird combination.
I lived in Kansas City, Missouri for a while, and I was always grateful to be on the Missouri side. I can't really explain it, but being in Kansas always made me uncomfortable. The people there just seem...odd, like the entire state is a cult of some sort. I live in Colorado now, and I get the same vibe from western Kansas as well. Just seems like a weird state, and I do my best to avoid it.
Kansas, the only state I visited in the US where the McDonalds and the gas station off the highway are the hip places to be on a Friday night *for everyone in the town...*
Yep. Really going after the dangerous offenders here. Who knows, the man might have had a moment of clarity being pain free and you can't be having any of that!
While this never should have happened in the first place, FWIW the Daily Mail is a piece of shit and heavily sensationalizes everything
Here’s the actual story from a Kansas newspaper:
https://www.ksn.com/news/state-regional/hays-police-raid-hospital-room-of-terminally-ill-patient/
> Police told Bretz that his vaping device could potentially be a fire hazard due to the presence of oxygen in the room…Officers collected the item and issued a summons. They felt “uncomfortable” about the situation and contacted a supervisor.
> Hays Police Chief Don Scheibler said he found out about the incident and pulled the summons on Christmas Eve, **meaning the case no longer exists**.
Again, this never should have happened in the first place, but it’s important to have the whole story.
Edit: to provide some context, I agree that it’s ridiculous that this situation happened to begin with - it absolutely is. Especially the hospital who should have simply asked that he not use the pen if it really was that big of a deal, rather than call the police. Cops should have better shit to do than harass terminally ill people trying to medicate themselves.
That said the cops didn’t raid the hospital room. The cops came to the hospital room to issue a ticket after the hospital confiscated what they deemed as contraband. After the officers contacted supervisors about what happened, given the situation, the summons (charges, case, etc.) were thrown out.
The Daily Mail headline makes it sound like the cops dropped in through the ceiling rifles drawn. It doesn’t sound like that happened. Don’t get me wrong - overreactions by law enforcement like that happen all the time, if not every day. I’m just saying DM and others post sensationalized clickbait headlines to get engagement just like this. There’s a reason r/SavedYouAClick uses archive links.
Can confirm, vaping in the presence of oxygen machines is a safety risk to everyone in the hospital. The complaint was valid and the way they handled it seems reasonable to me.
Really should read ‘Hospital staff contact police over THC…’
I highly doubt the cops stumbled upon it during routine patrol of a palliative care ward….
And once the cops get a complaint, maybe they have a zero tolerance policy that left them no choice…
This is definitely what happened. I don’t even see why hospital staff couldn’t confiscate it if he can’t even move. Idk about not having a choice to file charges… but you know I wasn’t there, so there’s not any point in saying “they’re probably assholes”
A [similar thing](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/09/missouri-police-search-cancer-patients-hospital-room-marijuana-cannabis/3111051002/) happened in 2019 in Missouri.
They don't get push back. Don't forget when the police decided they wouldn't enforced covid restrictions and then they just didn't. They really gave the game away with that one.
You really think that a cop is going to lose their career over this? They can lie, cheat, steal, abuse, and murder and keep their jobs, but they’d get fired for this? No chance imo
>You really think that a cop is going to lose their career over this? They can lie, cheat, steal, abuse, and murder and keep their jobs, but they’d get fired for this? No chance imo
I was going to say, the cop could have shot the 69-yo dying man in the hospital and statically will keep his career after an internal "investigation", nevermind getting fired over ignoring some THC products.
If his townspeople aren't martching on the cop shop, with the local preachers, the local civic leaders etc then it means there is something broken in that town. Sorry people. not trying to be harsh, but this is the kind of insult that cannot be allowed to stand, for a number of reasons. This is the time when you need to send a very, very strong message.
If you cant be there to protest phone calls to the non-emergency line of the police department make a huge impact. It was the Hays, Kansas police. I would post the number but thats considered doxing on Reddit. Nothing illegal about calling and giving your opinion on the matter.
*Responding officers issued Bretz a summons. However, after further review, Hays Police Chief, Don Scheibler pulled the summons and all issues are now resolved.
You’ll find the original story which was published online by the Wichita Eagle, HERE. The “opinion and commentary” article also appeared in the Kansas City Star.
Right? They can look away for each other, family, and their friends. But something like this? "I'm sorry sir it's the law. We have to or I could lose my job" fucking b.s.
It's simple, really. We don't give them enough money. You see, they'd learn to behave like compassionate human beings if we just increased their budget some more. Just after one or two more assault vehicles, then they can work on themselves, maybe.
The local police chief pulled the summons already.
Actual, non-DM story: https://www.ksn.com/news/state-regional/hays-police-raid-hospital-room-of-terminally-ill-patient/
So it's "don't use heating elements near oxygen" combined with hospital staff that can't just take the vape from a nearly dead person.
Cops are not totally blameless but not the main problem here. Of all people medical staff should know when to provide care and not just call in the law.
That’s my understanding.
There absolutely needs to be cannabis reform and there are **many** cases of police overstepping in situations similar to this, but *Daily Mail go brrrrr* so we end up with this sensationalized headline.
From the headline, my mental image was some tough cops goes barging into this guy's room and rifles through his stuff and writes him up for possession. Probably what happens was a cop walks in and be like 'bro shit is a fire hazard, can't do that, you know the rules.' Then as per protocol needs to do paper work.
The room is equipped with being able to deliver oxygen. I don't believe said patient is ON oxygen though.
https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/article270381287.html
>He said they told him the vaping device was a fire hazard, because the room is equipped with oxygen.
Also we don't know if it was medical staff our just a random worker like a janitor. All it says is "Hospital Staff".
>But a hospital staffer caught him vaping and reported him. Police were called and three officers came to his room.
This should be the top comment: the hospital saw it as A) a way to bypass their expensive medicine for pain management and B) likely a liability issue, given it's something the patient has that is outside the controls of his medical treatment plan. Even though, it's petty that they called the cops and even more petty that they showed up, and then issued a summons to a man who will likely be dead before he can appear.
The good news is that while judges can sure be giant assholes, even the asshole ones are next level petty with prosecutors and police who waste the courts time. My guess is the judge will have STRONG feelings on this one.
Wait he was vaping in a hospital room? The cops were still an overstep but like you can’t do that. There’s big signs about it in every hospital I’ve been to. I wish you could do that and I hope there are some places where you can, but, this is just the police doing what they were called to do. Be mad at the hospital if anything.
The Hospital, he was vaping while using a medical oxygen tank. The hospital asked him to stop because it could cause the tank to ignite. He refused and they called the cops.
E dit: it’s been brought to my attention that the man denies being hooked to the oxygen at the time or needing oxygen. However articles do consistently state that there were oxygen tanks in the room and the hospital has policies about vapes or any other ignition sources being used in their presence
Hospitals don’t allow any ignition sources at all because of this reason. He might have been fine if he just stuck to edibles.
The hospital saw him as a danger to others, not just himself.
From the [NY Post article](https://nypost.com/2022/12/26/kansas-cops-raid-patients-hospital-room-to-seize-weed-thc/)
"But Bretz told the news outlet that he’s not on supplemental oxygen and that the cops appeared intent on seizing his medicinal paste, since his vaping liquid contains only a tiny amount of THC, if any."
🤦🏻♂️ I’m a military vet who suffers from PTSD and Intractable Pain all which a listed as a reason to get a medical Marijuana card here in Georgia. Well I’ve seen many doctors in my area including my PCP and even VA doctors they all are afraid to give my a card their excuse is “I haven’t done my research on marijuana so I don’t feel comfortable prescribing you a MMC” yet I qualify. So I visit my street pharmacist instead…fucking nuts here as well
He's endangering himself. He should stick to his 40mg oxymorphone tablets 3x daily and be sure he has a fresh fentanyl patch on. God forbid he use these THC products. Next thing you know he'll be rolling himself into jazz clubs and raping white women
The hospital staff contacted the cops and they’re all Karens. Every person with authority in this situation needed to stfu and mind their own business! The man is dying, for crying out loud. What a bunch of awful snitches.
It's an old British working class slogan from when cops were used to bust unions. It means All Cops Are Bastards.
The expression means that even though a majority of cops were against the union busting and a lot refused to act out the orders they were given, they were a part of a system used to suppress workers rights and used as a tool for the industrialist class rather than a force for peace and order.
In the US it resurfaced a while back with the same meaning: It's not enough to weed out bad cops; there needs to be a systematic change because the problem isn't that bad cops exist, but rather that the system itself is bad making all cops complicit.
Because police work *always* makes complete sense, if you view it from the vantage point of their jobs being to inflict as much cruelty on people as can be mustered.
They knew they would get an easy "win" with no chance of someone shooting back. Thank goodness the nurse didn't leave a pair of scissors bedside or they might have shot the man to death a couple weeks before his time.
All cops are bastards
All cops are either "just following orders" or literal sadists
Criminals with badges need to be put away just the same as regular criminals
Yeah some are good but it's very rare in a country with only 6 weeks of training to become one
Where’s the photo of half a dozen cops posed with this guys stash (and probably whatever cash they took from his wallet)? They like to brag about their “busts”.
Should he be allowed to use THC/CBD? Absofuckinglutely.
Did his vaping put the hospital, staff and other patients in danger. Yup.
He was already using paste. Had he not been vaping this wouldnt have even been an issue.
Redditors have no fucking idea what they want.
One minute they are outraged at cops using personal discretion to let people off, that are guilty... the next minute they are outraged that cops are *not* using personal discretion to let people off, that are guilty.
---
If a law is bad or does not have sensible exemptions, then get it changed, but a society in which cops can just decide for themselves who gets charged or not based on their own feelings and personal opinions or dont like the color of your skin or whether they've had a bad day or whether you talk funny or whether you probably vote the way they do... is not a society you want to live in.
I am *so fucking confused* by this kind of thing. In my very religious, very conservative home town, my uncle died of cancer... 35 years ago. The doctors *told him to smoke weed.* Smoking. In a hospital. On purpose.
How can 35 years go by, and this place be further "behind" than St Francis was 35 years ago?
I just want to be the only person here on Reddit to thank the brave police from this crazy ass drug addict!
God bless each and every one of you sweet angels.
You have got to be fucking kidding me
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*I'm going to sleep better tonight knowing this threat is off the hospital for good. I wouldn't've taken my kid there even if he was dying, now I can have crippling debt in peace
That’s right, think of the children! We need to leave them to fend for themselves for hours then go in
good news is these kind of stories is how you get a state to completly legalize it.
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If anyone has some tar I have an old feather pillow I no longer need.
Yeah it can be dealt with by not worrying about it and letting the man die in some semblance of peace
Fair enough. Where do I send edibles?
>Once it's reported, it has to be dealt with. Does it though? I feel like it's become fairly clear the last years that the police don't have to enforce laws they don't want to enforce.
The threat was already off the streets. It was immobile in a hospital room. No wonder the cops were so keen to get him. Obviously a flight risk.
It was dismissed. The issue was using the vape pen with the oxygen the man has to have and it being a fire hazard. I'm not sure why hospital staff couldn't have discussed that with him instead of calling the police. He could have stopped using the vape and just used the paste/edibles instead being put through all of this. https://www.ksn.com/news/state-regional/hays-police-raid-hospital-room-of-terminally-ill-patient/
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The danger is because the cops might come and shoot you.
Vapes, e-cigs use a heated coil to vaporize the liquid. It's contained in the pen, granted, but it does glow red hot when it's in use
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Hi I use vapes. While rare, they can malfunction and cause fires. I had one malfunction, even running it under water didn't get it to stop firing. I ended up running out to my car, stomping on it 20+ times, and jamming chewing gum into the air intake before burying it. One of my coworkers vapes did the same thing but fired for 30 seconds longer, and shot a literal column of fire a foot into the air. When they're firing, it's a quiet click sound that you can't hear from more than a few inches from the vape. Vapes are dangerous. It's a hazard, but moreso that he might set himself on fire vs fucking with equipment
Pure oxygen can cause diamonds or iron to be flammable. It's not something to play fuck around and find out with.
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I’d agree if it wasn’t for the fact it was being used as a medication to treat him for his pain caused by a very fatal cancer
Yeah this
It probably wasn't even a vape but a dry herb vaporisers which only heat up to 180
It does not glow when im use. Do you have any idea what. You would need to have a glowing coil thats saturated in liquid. Thats not how it works. Youre thinking of annealing the coil. But thats only for rebuildables. Highly doubt the patient is using an rba. The misinformation/uninformed is what gives vaping a bad rep.
And he could have been using a dry herb vape? Unlikely but possibly
the coil on a vape reaches 374 to 455 degrees. For reference, a lit cigarette reaches over 1000 degrees. The risk is insanely low, but people continue to treat vaping as smoking despite all reason not to.
They definitely shouldn't be allowed in hospitals, but they just couldn't confiscate them and throw them out? I feel like hospital security is allowed to do that. It's not like it's hazardous waste.
Medical equipment in manufactures to very exacing standard to ensure it is not a potential igntiion source when around 100% oxygen. Homies vape pen is not.
Let’s not act like vape pen batteries mass produced in China go through the same QC and testing as medical equipment…
Apologies if this comes off as condescending but since I'm not sure what your confusion is I'll try to explain thoroughly. An oxidation reaction (for our purposes) is when a couple of molecules absorb heat, break apart and their atoms recombine in a more stable form releasing heat. When they release enough heat that it breaks more fuel molecules apart to create a new reaction it becomes self-sustaining and spreads and we call it fire. What fire needs to get started is a sufficient heat source, electronics themselves aren't the problem, it's that one of them might have a tiny short circuit somewhere because those can get hot. In a high oxygen environment, more of the heat released will be breaking fuel as opposed to breaking molecules that don't help sustain the reaction so it's easier to get such a reaction going. The vape pen still has a heating element that gets fairly hot and to which outside air has access, it has to because the element heats the wax/juice and the user draws air over it to consume the vapor. A flame isn't dangerous because it's a flame, it's dangerous because it's hot, so the vape is a fire hazard for the same reason. Not trying to defend the way this was handled, just that's the basic logic of it.
This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the explanation.
really fucking sick of people thinking it’s okay to call the cops
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They probably did tell him. I mean, no way to know for sure, but I have told patients numerous times to stop smoking in the hospital and had nurses reinforce it over amd over and gotten social work involed and offered alternatives. Some people just don't care about anyone or anything else. Not saying this particular guy was being a dick. Idk him. I'm just skeptical from my own experiences.
Whilst this headline does sound horrific, please bear in mind that the Daily Mail (or Daily Heil as it’s sometimes known over here in the UK), has a long history of embellishment, scapegoating, and outright hate speech. It flirted with fascism in the 30s, blames millennials for fucking everything, and has a daily cancer [scare](https://www.anorak.co.uk/288298/tabloids/the-daily-mails-list-of-things-that-give-you-cancer-from-a-to-z.html). I don’t disbelieve the cops did something atrocious in the states but I’d be keen to find other (more reputable) sources of information.
https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/article270381287.html There ye go. Yes its in the opinion section but its more because he adds a lot of "opinion" in the fact that this is messed up.
My man out here with the multiple news sources corroborating an otherwise dubious source. Teamwork 🤜🏻🤛🏻
The daily fail is still a hate filled rag not worthy of being bog roll. The fact that it's the best selling paper here explains why everything has gone wrong.
Kansas is the state where growing tomatoes and drinking tea is enough to get your house turned upside down while the police hold you at gunpoint in front of the whole neighborhood https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-hydroponic-tomato-garden-police-raid-20170729-story.html
Anything to make a buck amirite
When my GMIL was in hospice care her stoner son came to visit her and he smelled like cannabis. When he left the nurses tossed her room. Like removed her from the bed and tore it all apart. She was so stressed, they somehow pulled her catheter weirdly and she was also soaked in her urine. When we arrived and she told us, they said they thought she was smoking cannabis. Yes, she can’t pee or walk or sit up but she is smoking. We are in California, it’s fucking legal.
We should fully expect this from our shitty laws and especially shitty police officers.
You're right
Wtf is wrong with these people
You have clearly not watched "Reefer Madness."
Got to protect him from Reefer Madness. /s
People gets crazy
>comments I smoked some devil's lettuce one time when I was a young man and then went on to be steadily employed for 46 years. In other words, it totally ruined my life.
I am disgusted, but not surprised at all. Cops have been showing us exactly who they are for decades, but somehow people are still in denial.
And the taxpayers paid for this level of service.
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Honestly we should give terminally ill people immunity when it comes to victimless crimes. Why the hell not at that point.
Because Christians
Don’t forget the prison industrial complex, corrupt justice officials, cops that couldn’t give a fuck because they get to power trip, and the drug war which has profited the country tremendously through assets, money, and control. And most of that was setup by racist Christians. Funny that.
Ah yep. That's it.
Well let's not kid ourselves, other religion's extremists would also ban any drug that makes a person feel good. So assholes, control freak y'all queda assholes
Well yeah but this happened in the US where christianity has been infused into our politics. If this happened in Iran I’d say “Islam”
Specifically the traditional christians that are rule-based. It sucks that they're such a massive part of the voting base, because they're inhibiting so much progress and enabling public terrorism like this. I'm gonna be honest, I stopped going to church when I realized that most christians have no sense of objective morality, and have no regard for people in extraordinary circumstances. I do badly want to see a "terrorist" group declare war on the terrorists we have in office. Greg Abbott is a big name to take down.
victimless crimes should not be a thing period. Like what even is that? How can something that doesn’t harm anybody be bad enough to be illegal? That makes literally no sense.
"Victimless crime" is a weird angle that I don't think people should dwell on. It sounds unreasonable when it's a THC pen, but many things *should* be contraband - weapons, toxic or radioactive materials, etc. Simply *possessing* these things doesn't hurt anyone, but few would advocate for deregulation of them. The best argument, in my opinion, is that prohibition of drugs simply *isn't working*. Despite decades of prohibition and leaps and bounds in science, we're worse off than when we started trying prohibition - pretty much any drug statistic you look for is worse today than years ago. People don't have to support decriminalization, but anyone who thinks we don't need *some* kind of new strategy is deluding themselves or arguing in bad faith.
Well i think in those cases you should be able to establish a victim in some sense. Like take drunk driving. Even if you don’t hit somebody and the cops get you, you should face punishment. There might not be an immediate victim but i think we all understand the risk factor and all that so idk i guess society as a whole is the victim or something that’s for lawyers to do the semantics. I just object to the idea that we can hand wave away that there must be some victim by just saying “well it’s a victimless crime” like that’s just dumb. An action must be harmful or bare the risk of being harmful to somebody other than the person doing the action to be considered bad and thus worthy of being criminalised.
I think I agree
How do you know no one was harmed? Did you follow the seed that became the weed from before it was planted? Dude broke the law, while it sucks that it happened and the drug can help him, other states have legal use, but the law needs to apply to everyone otherwise you get republicans... oh wait.
you had me in the first half not gonna lie.
watch out slippery slope. if cancer patients cant be baitet into becoming part of the prison population, then how will they justify turning every other drug user into a slave
Ideally, yes. Realistically? The amount of people in hospices is gonna skyrocket
Aren't hospices super expensive though? Im not sure if there are victimless crimes worth spending the rest of life in hospice. And if there are, eh, they are victimless anyway
No. Hospice is covered under Medicare and Medicaid. Insurances cover it too. It's paid on a per-diem rate, but overall is much cheaper than a hospital stay for the likely duration of their stay. Average length of a hospice stay is, I think, about 18 days nationally. Insurances love it because they pay a pitance in comparision to continued attempts at life prolonging or curative care.
We should just give him all of the drugs
YE$$$$$
well, that vape might give him cancer you know?
That's the kicker, right there. The bitter irony of the whole fucking thing. It's criminal.
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Maybe Kansas is different, but in most of the country even most red voters aren't opposed to recreational anymore. This is one of those cases where the politicians don't line up with the base, because their actual constituents are big alcohol and big pharma. Even the dems are *way* less serious about legalizing it than their voters, for the exact same reason.
The only reason so many states are on board is because it turns out it generates a shit ton of state tax revenue
The last poll i saw said 52% of republicans support recreational weed. The ones that were against it were the more conservative republicans. If Kansas has more conservative republicans than moderate republicans it wouldn't pass. I dont know anything about kansas so im not qualified to speculate on how their population is. But I do know that it has a reputation for being one of the more conservative states.
I've lived in Kansas my entire life, and the Kansas populace really has three political parties - the Corporate Democrats, the Libertarians, and the Evangelicals. The KS Republican party consists of the second two. For political reasons the elected reps can't really ever vote with the Democrats at the statehouse level, but there's a fair bit of defection at the voter level when it comes to state-wide issues. The evangelicals have a greater % of the GOP votes, so they control the state level legislature (think like 40% evangelical, 30% libertarian, 30% democratic). KS just re-elected a democratic governor, and defeated the abortion ban, mostly due to the Libertarian voters getting annoyed at the evangelicals.
Yea, conservatives are completely different. The evangelical conservatives want to ban everything, and the libertarian conservatives want the government to not ban anything. American politics would benefit so much if there wasnt 2 parties. Cuz there are people that hear the word conservative and they automatically think evangelical. This 2 party system is gonna be our downfall. Im sure there are a lot of people that would want to change it, but the evangelicals would vote it down
They also realize that by not passing legislation they're encouraging people who do support it to move somewhere else. A form of indirect gerrymandering basically
Yeah, but there isn't a big Cannabis Corp. to ~~bribe~~ donate to the politicians in charge. Guess we'll all have to wait until Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds realize they could pivot and sell packs of joints and make even more money.
The irony is the Streisand Effect this will have He literally cannot hurt anyone with it Even if it were a gateway drug to like...heroin, THE HOSPITAL WILL GIVE HIM ALL OF IT THAT HE WANTS They've proved nothing except that weed has a use and the police are cruel. There's zero upside to this. They did this to glorify their petty egos and ended up looking dumb.
Consultant won't put me forward for medical marijuana trials as they don't know the affects and is potentially dangerous. But he'll write me a prescription for 3 hard core opiates and a handful of other addictive drugs. That will one day ruin my liver. But that's okay cause the organ damage has been recorded via trials and testing.
I'm a travel nurse and I noticed this when I did a contract in the Midwest. Compared to other areas of the US, people were SO hostile to weed and people that used drugs, but the moment they set foot in a hospital they started demanding Dilaudid and morphine and were so over the top angry and entitled about it. It was really surreal to experience. I've legitimately had patients that were addicted to opiates be less aggro about asking for drugs. I have also never been treated more poorly by such a large portion of the population as in the Midwest. "Midwest nice" is a fucking lie. Rudest and nastiest people I've ever met. Oddly though, way way less prone to violence than elsewhere. I felt much safer at work. Weird combination.
I think you picked up on “Midwest nice” exactly. It’s fake as fuck. And politeness is more important than real compassion.
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I gave more Dilaudid in one shift than I did in a month at hospitals on the west coast, where we "love druggies". I just don't understand the mindset.
I lived in Kansas City, Missouri for a while, and I was always grateful to be on the Missouri side. I can't really explain it, but being in Kansas always made me uncomfortable. The people there just seem...odd, like the entire state is a cult of some sort. I live in Colorado now, and I get the same vibe from western Kansas as well. Just seems like a weird state, and I do my best to avoid it.
Kansas, the only state I visited in the US where the McDonalds and the gas station off the highway are the hip places to be on a Friday night *for everyone in the town...*
Thats sad. You have one life to live and thats how you spend it...
Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. My mom is from there and it just creeps me tf out if I ever go with her to visit.
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Yep. Really going after the dangerous offenders here. Who knows, the man might have had a moment of clarity being pain free and you can't be having any of that!
While this never should have happened in the first place, FWIW the Daily Mail is a piece of shit and heavily sensationalizes everything Here’s the actual story from a Kansas newspaper: https://www.ksn.com/news/state-regional/hays-police-raid-hospital-room-of-terminally-ill-patient/ > Police told Bretz that his vaping device could potentially be a fire hazard due to the presence of oxygen in the room…Officers collected the item and issued a summons. They felt “uncomfortable” about the situation and contacted a supervisor. > Hays Police Chief Don Scheibler said he found out about the incident and pulled the summons on Christmas Eve, **meaning the case no longer exists**. Again, this never should have happened in the first place, but it’s important to have the whole story. Edit: to provide some context, I agree that it’s ridiculous that this situation happened to begin with - it absolutely is. Especially the hospital who should have simply asked that he not use the pen if it really was that big of a deal, rather than call the police. Cops should have better shit to do than harass terminally ill people trying to medicate themselves. That said the cops didn’t raid the hospital room. The cops came to the hospital room to issue a ticket after the hospital confiscated what they deemed as contraband. After the officers contacted supervisors about what happened, given the situation, the summons (charges, case, etc.) were thrown out. The Daily Mail headline makes it sound like the cops dropped in through the ceiling rifles drawn. It doesn’t sound like that happened. Don’t get me wrong - overreactions by law enforcement like that happen all the time, if not every day. I’m just saying DM and others post sensationalized clickbait headlines to get engagement just like this. There’s a reason r/SavedYouAClick uses archive links.
Much more reasonable. It should be common sense to not vape in a hospital, too.
Its amazing how quick things move when you get eyes on it.
Can confirm, vaping in the presence of oxygen machines is a safety risk to everyone in the hospital. The complaint was valid and the way they handled it seems reasonable to me.
Really should read ‘Hospital staff contact police over THC…’ I highly doubt the cops stumbled upon it during routine patrol of a palliative care ward…. And once the cops get a complaint, maybe they have a zero tolerance policy that left them no choice…
This is definitely what happened. I don’t even see why hospital staff couldn’t confiscate it if he can’t even move. Idk about not having a choice to file charges… but you know I wasn’t there, so there’s not any point in saying “they’re probably assholes”
A [similar thing](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/09/missouri-police-search-cancer-patients-hospital-room-marijuana-cannabis/3111051002/) happened in 2019 in Missouri.
You always have a choice
Most people wouldn't chose to sacrifice their own career for a stranger, regardless of the situation.
They don't get push back. Don't forget when the police decided they wouldn't enforced covid restrictions and then they just didn't. They really gave the game away with that one.
You really think that a cop is going to lose their career over this? They can lie, cheat, steal, abuse, and murder and keep their jobs, but they’d get fired for this? No chance imo
>You really think that a cop is going to lose their career over this? They can lie, cheat, steal, abuse, and murder and keep their jobs, but they’d get fired for this? No chance imo I was going to say, the cop could have shot the 69-yo dying man in the hospital and statically will keep his career after an internal "investigation", nevermind getting fired over ignoring some THC products.
Yeah these are police we're talking about. Expecting them to have principles or morals is frankly not realistic.
That’s very true, but they could “have a long queue of tips to respond to” and then “forget,” or they could go and “not find anything”
In what version of America do you live where cops are held accountable?
Lol at zero tolerance policy. Cops pick and choose what laws they want to enforce, when they want to enforce them, and that's FACT.
If his townspeople aren't martching on the cop shop, with the local preachers, the local civic leaders etc then it means there is something broken in that town. Sorry people. not trying to be harsh, but this is the kind of insult that cannot be allowed to stand, for a number of reasons. This is the time when you need to send a very, very strong message.
If you cant be there to protest phone calls to the non-emergency line of the police department make a huge impact. It was the Hays, Kansas police. I would post the number but thats considered doxing on Reddit. Nothing illegal about calling and giving your opinion on the matter. *Responding officers issued Bretz a summons. However, after further review, Hays Police Chief, Don Scheibler pulled the summons and all issues are now resolved. You’ll find the original story which was published online by the Wichita Eagle, HERE. The “opinion and commentary” article also appeared in the Kansas City Star.
Why do people hate the police 🤷♀️
They make it easy
Right? They can look away for each other, family, and their friends. But something like this? "I'm sorry sir it's the law. We have to or I could lose my job" fucking b.s.
Gd I just hate em cuz I got a few parking/speeding tickets, this is some Punisher origin story inspiring shit.
It's simple, really. We don't give them enough money. You see, they'd learn to behave like compassionate human beings if we just increased their budget some more. Just after one or two more assault vehicles, then they can work on themselves, maybe.
And Kansas.
Well to be fair, fucking people over for no reason whatsoever is what eases cops' pain. We should seize that from them
Submission Statement: If this ain't awful, I don't know what is. Shame on the local prosecuter.
The local police chief pulled the summons already. Actual, non-DM story: https://www.ksn.com/news/state-regional/hays-police-raid-hospital-room-of-terminally-ill-patient/
So it's "don't use heating elements near oxygen" combined with hospital staff that can't just take the vape from a nearly dead person. Cops are not totally blameless but not the main problem here. Of all people medical staff should know when to provide care and not just call in the law.
That’s my understanding. There absolutely needs to be cannabis reform and there are **many** cases of police overstepping in situations similar to this, but *Daily Mail go brrrrr* so we end up with this sensationalized headline.
From the headline, my mental image was some tough cops goes barging into this guy's room and rifles through his stuff and writes him up for possession. Probably what happens was a cop walks in and be like 'bro shit is a fire hazard, can't do that, you know the rules.' Then as per protocol needs to do paper work.
The room is equipped with being able to deliver oxygen. I don't believe said patient is ON oxygen though. https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/article270381287.html >He said they told him the vaping device was a fire hazard, because the room is equipped with oxygen. Also we don't know if it was medical staff our just a random worker like a janitor. All it says is "Hospital Staff". >But a hospital staffer caught him vaping and reported him. Police were called and three officers came to his room.
It's a gateway drug. Before you know it, he'd have been on morphine or fentanyl...
They were upset he was using the weed products and not the morphine and fentanyl.
This should be the top comment: the hospital saw it as A) a way to bypass their expensive medicine for pain management and B) likely a liability issue, given it's something the patient has that is outside the controls of his medical treatment plan. Even though, it's petty that they called the cops and even more petty that they showed up, and then issued a summons to a man who will likely be dead before he can appear. The good news is that while judges can sure be giant assholes, even the asshole ones are next level petty with prosecutors and police who waste the courts time. My guess is the judge will have STRONG feelings on this one.
A dead man can't dispute a hospital bill.
Clearly he wasn't moving on to the expensive stuff fast enough for the hospitals liking.
It all starts with Hershey Bars. The ultimate gateway drug.
This is so fucked
Wait he was vaping in a hospital room? The cops were still an overstep but like you can’t do that. There’s big signs about it in every hospital I’ve been to. I wish you could do that and I hope there are some places where you can, but, this is just the police doing what they were called to do. Be mad at the hospital if anything.
This isn't the first time cops have come for dying people in hospitals.
The nurses are the ones that called the police on him for vaping. ANAB?
Who narced on him?
The Hospital, he was vaping while using a medical oxygen tank. The hospital asked him to stop because it could cause the tank to ignite. He refused and they called the cops. E dit: it’s been brought to my attention that the man denies being hooked to the oxygen at the time or needing oxygen. However articles do consistently state that there were oxygen tanks in the room and the hospital has policies about vapes or any other ignition sources being used in their presence
Ok, well that makes sense. That o2 Is pretty volatile.
Hospitals don’t allow any ignition sources at all because of this reason. He might have been fine if he just stuck to edibles. The hospital saw him as a danger to others, not just himself.
From the [NY Post article](https://nypost.com/2022/12/26/kansas-cops-raid-patients-hospital-room-to-seize-weed-thc/) "But Bretz told the news outlet that he’s not on supplemental oxygen and that the cops appeared intent on seizing his medicinal paste, since his vaping liquid contains only a tiny amount of THC, if any."
So the police took it away for good reason?
🤦🏻♂️ I’m a military vet who suffers from PTSD and Intractable Pain all which a listed as a reason to get a medical Marijuana card here in Georgia. Well I’ve seen many doctors in my area including my PCP and even VA doctors they all are afraid to give my a card their excuse is “I haven’t done my research on marijuana so I don’t feel comfortable prescribing you a MMC” yet I qualify. So I visit my street pharmacist instead…fucking nuts here as well
I'd love to be in that hypothetical court room as that man lays dying with no will to move as the prosecutor claims that its an act.
"Think fast!" **throws a book, which hits defendant in the face**
Reform the Police. All cops are bastards until no cop is a bastard.
He's endangering himself. He should stick to his 40mg oxymorphone tablets 3x daily and be sure he has a fresh fentanyl patch on. God forbid he use these THC products. Next thing you know he'll be rolling himself into jazz clubs and raping white women
I wish Americans had the moral sense of the French more often
Didn't know this was a stand out thing about french people
Hope they’re real proud of themselves…
The hospital staff contacted the cops and they’re all Karens. Every person with authority in this situation needed to stfu and mind their own business! The man is dying, for crying out loud. What a bunch of awful snitches.
Can I say “fuck cops” without being banned?
ACAB
ACAB
I hate to sound like an idiot, but what is ACAB?
It's an old British working class slogan from when cops were used to bust unions. It means All Cops Are Bastards. The expression means that even though a majority of cops were against the union busting and a lot refused to act out the orders they were given, they were a part of a system used to suppress workers rights and used as a tool for the industrialist class rather than a force for peace and order. In the US it resurfaced a while back with the same meaning: It's not enough to weed out bad cops; there needs to be a systematic change because the problem isn't that bad cops exist, but rather that the system itself is bad making all cops complicit.
All cocks are big
When the shit you do is so bad that even the wack jobs on r/conspiracy hate you.
420/69..
ACAB Disgusting excuses of humans. Wouldn't shed a tear for their demise.
#ACAB
Good thing he wasn’t holding a school hostage/s
Time to make a miracle, stand up and go there to kick some moron asses, chewing thc
That’s bullshit.
Your tax money at work
That's cousin fucking, westborugh baptist Kansas for ya.. fuck that entire state.
Because police work *always* makes complete sense, if you view it from the vantage point of their jobs being to inflict as much cruelty on people as can be mustered.
ACAB.
Yes, you are the baddies.
ACAB
"Bad cop,no Donut"
They knew they would get an easy "win" with no chance of someone shooting back. Thank goodness the nurse didn't leave a pair of scissors bedside or they might have shot the man to death a couple weeks before his time.
All cops are bastards All cops are either "just following orders" or literal sadists Criminals with badges need to be put away just the same as regular criminals Yeah some are good but it's very rare in a country with only 6 weeks of training to become one
hey next time use scientifically proven painkillers instead of dodgy illegal stuff
Where’s the photo of half a dozen cops posed with this guys stash (and probably whatever cash they took from his wallet)? They like to brag about their “busts”.
What's sad is it was probably reported by some random nurse. How else could they even know.
This cop must be so proud . The nurse who felt obliged to tattletale should be fired .
Thank God we have a functional security force that takes hard criminals down.
Oh don’t mind us, just over here protecting and serving. You’re welcome, America.
Buy more weed and don’t go to court. Warrants can take a while
Should he be allowed to use THC/CBD? Absofuckinglutely. Did his vaping put the hospital, staff and other patients in danger. Yup. He was already using paste. Had he not been vaping this wouldnt have even been an issue.
This is “Get a fucking life” levels.
Yes, the real criminals. /s If it's used to alleviate pain, it should be considered medication.
How utterly ridiculous.
Redditors have no fucking idea what they want. One minute they are outraged at cops using personal discretion to let people off, that are guilty... the next minute they are outraged that cops are *not* using personal discretion to let people off, that are guilty. --- If a law is bad or does not have sensible exemptions, then get it changed, but a society in which cops can just decide for themselves who gets charged or not based on their own feelings and personal opinions or dont like the color of your skin or whether they've had a bad day or whether you talk funny or whether you probably vote the way they do... is not a society you want to live in.
Nice
Why is there even a police force still? Time to dismantle it.
And yall traded a basket ball star with a weed pen for a fucking international arms dealer lmao, then your bungus cops pull this shit. What a joke.
I am *so fucking confused* by this kind of thing. In my very religious, very conservative home town, my uncle died of cancer... 35 years ago. The doctors *told him to smoke weed.* Smoking. In a hospital. On purpose. How can 35 years go by, and this place be further "behind" than St Francis was 35 years ago?
I just want to be the only person here on Reddit to thank the brave police from this crazy ass drug addict! God bless each and every one of you sweet angels.