Even An Elderly, Grieving Husband Is A Potential Drug Criminal
Radley Balko writes at Huff Post about how utterly out of hand the paranoia has become that someone will pop a pill they were not prescribed and get high. He quotes this story from Utah, by Dennis Romboy, in the Deseret News:
A man says Vernal police disrupted an intimate moment of mourning with his deceased wife of 58 years when they searched his house for her prescription medication without a warrant within minutes of her death.Barbara Alice Mahaffey died of colon cancer in her bedroom last May. Ben D. Mahaffey, 80, said he was distraught and trying to make sure his wife's body would be taken to the funeral home with dignity, when he says officers insisted he help them look for the drugs.
"I was holding her hand saying goodbye when all the intrusion happened," he told the Deseret News.
Barbara Mahaffey died at 12:35 a.m. with Mahaffey, a Navy medic in the Korean War, and his friend, an EMT, at her side. In addition to police, a mortician and a hospice worker arrived at the home about 12:45 a.m., Mahaffey said. He said he doesn't know how police came to be there.
"I was indignant to think you can't even have a private moment. All these people were there and they're not concerned about her or me. They're concerned about the damn drugs. Isn't that something?" Mahaffey said.
Mahaffey said he was treated as if he were going to sell the painkillers, which included OxyContin, oxycodone and morphine, on the street.
Balko puts it in perspective:
Note the utter lack of compassion, the inability to see a grieving husband as anything other than a potential drug dealer. Note the priorities on display. The most important thing the cops had to do that day was get those drugs out of that house. Preventing someone from using Barbara Mahaffey's pills to get high, or preventing Ben Mahaffey from--God forbid--using pain medication not prescribed to him at some point in the future, was more important than giving a widower a last moment of dignity to say goodbye to his wife of 58 years.
Related: Bloomberg practicing "legislative medicine" to keep pain pills out of the hands of people poor enough to go to public hospitals.
There are two things here that I do not understand:
First, a patient's medications are between that patient, the pharmacist and the doctor. There is a medical duty to keep patient information private. How do the police have this information?
Second, if these were prescription medications, they were legitimately purchased. They belong to him, and the police have no right to take them without his permission.
Oddly, Balko raises neither of these questions.
a_random_guy at January 15, 2013 2:37 AM
The Medical Examiner might order this to determine the cause of death.
The manpower expenditure suggests this.
Radwaste at January 15, 2013 4:57 AM
Through the help of Hospice care, my father was able to die at home. The Hospice worker who responded at that late hour was typically wonderful and sympathetic, but legally the first thing he had to do was ask for all the remaining morphine, determine none was missing, then wash it down the drain.
With the case above we're seeing the effects of militarizing our police through all the Homeland Security cash & equipment & the ruling philosophy that citizens are things to be controlled, and guilty until proven innocent.
rosalind at January 15, 2013 6:43 AM
Drugs aren't evil, but the war against them is.
Assholio at January 15, 2013 8:26 AM
Look, he's an old man and no longer on active military duty, so he's obviously not a hero any more.
The police, however, are risking their lives to keep our children safe in this daring drug raid.
Didn't you people learn anything on 9/11?
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at January 15, 2013 10:17 AM
That old and my wife dead? I'd start shooting pigs had that happened to me
lujlp at January 15, 2013 10:27 AM
And these miserable pricks wonder why we hate them.
Frank at January 15, 2013 12:58 PM
Huh, same thing happened when my first husband died. but it was just the Hospice worker asking where everything was...pain pills are just tooo much fun. I'm not sure legal pot can compete.
carol at January 15, 2013 1:27 PM
>There are two things here that I do not understand...
I'm beginning to think we aren't meant to understand. Just shut-up and comply.
Meloni at January 15, 2013 2:42 PM
How about not allowing hospice workers in the house?
It might be best to keep them out. After all, these types of situations are family affairs.
Did the badge carrying crooks have a warrant, or consent, to search the property?
Hopefully, somebody will sue over that one.
SM777 at January 15, 2013 3:32 PM
SM777- You can't be possibly serious. Do you have the FAINTEST idea of the services that hospice provides?
Juliana at January 15, 2013 8:34 PM
My grandfather died of liver cancer in 1997, after which my grandmother came to live with us. I was in high school at the time. Six years later she died, and among her things we found my grandfather's prescription painkillers. I'm sure nobody had been using them; we're just the kind of people who never throw away drugs. My parents may still have some oxycontin that expired in 1997. I should warn them before the police get wind.
Sosij at January 16, 2013 10:14 PM
Again - if the ME suspects they are the cause of death, she can order the search.
Imagine - you're old and feeble, sort of a burden, and your kids were raised poorly.
You're not going to get lots of help getting old.
Radwaste at January 19, 2013 7:43 AM
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