Nurses and other healthcare professionals don’t take the Hippocratic Oath, though they may make similarly aligned promises as part of their graduation ceremonies. One such alternative: the Nightingale pledge, a document written in 1893 and named in honor of the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale. During their graduation and/or pinning ceremonies, new nurses may be invited to recite the oath.
He was vaping and there are stories about vape devices igniting things when patients use them at the same time as oxygen.
However, this patient was not on oxygen, the hospital staff could have easily explained the danger if they thought there was a danger and then called his doctor about the paste. They did not need to call authorities unless of course the legal department was called.
Who knows? Everyone is so damn afraid of lawsuits that no one will make a decision outside of the rules.
As far as the cop, this was in another story.
“The officer, as he was leaving the building, he didn’t feel comfortable writing the ticket,” Chief Scheibler said. “That day, the officer sent an email to the city prosecutor requesting that the charge be dismissed.”
Should he have wrote the ticket to begin with? Probably or definitely not but he did appear to have a conscious.
Vaping devices generate no open flame, but the (battery operated) electrical elements are a fire risk, especially in the presence of flammable gas like oxygen.
Which the patient was not being given, but which was accessible within the room… and all of which still has nothing to do with the cannabis paste that was confiscated/reported.
Thanks for the clarification.
Yeah, I am baffled at the responses here. He was not charged (briefly, thank god) for having a vape pen, that was not why the cops were called initially. It was over an edible paste which, while it might be capable of burning if you try hard enough, was certainly not a fire hazard in the given circumstances. Good on the cop for realizing how stupid the whole situation was, but this does not excuse the nurse, or whoever it was who decided to involve LEOs in the first place. There seems to be a lot of defending the indefensible going on here.
Completely agreed, although I wouldn’t be surprised if hospital regulations forbid the use of vaping devices across the board for the sake of safety, since if the oxygen system leaks, or is left open even slightly, the results could be catastrophic. The article doesn’t mention whether the patient shared a room with somebody who was on oxygen.
Unless he reprimanded the reporting officer who let it get that far, and gave a stern warning to the nurse, not-an-asshole is a bit of a stretch.
The vape pen was immaterial to the story!! The edible paste was the offending substance!! Gaahhh!!
I suspect part of the problem is truely over adherance to dumb policies.
The second article mentions that state law requires reporting of such incidents. This is the HUGE problem in my opinion. Healthcare requires confidentiality and open communication. Caring for people using drugs requires understanding what they are using (and will probably keep using while being treated), and it is not uncommon for recreational drug users to have some on them when they arrive at hospital. Stigmatizing people who use drugs by calling the police helps no one. That law absolutely needs to be challenged and tossed in the trash.
That being said the article is light on details so I am hesitant to vilify or defend the Nurse. Healthcare workers are severely burned out and it isn’t clear what the interactions were before the police were called. A patient in a bad place and a tired healthcare worker isn’t a good combo. And a policy saying they should contact the police is offensive.
The police however… Screw that. How does charging a person who is suffering help anyone? Im glad to see the chief rectified that, but it never should have happened.
Edit to add the system I am used to:
In my hospital system suspected illicit drugs that are confiscated (this may not always happen) go into numbered bags. The patient information is never associated with the bag number and it is only tracked in terms of how it moved through hospital staff for legal liability reasons. Patients are allowed to request the bag back through the police, but the police can never identify the patient from the bag. That way hospitals don’t have to worry about laibility, and patient confidentiality is never breached.
Immaterial? It’s the entire reason the cops were called in the first place. Without the vape pen, none of this would have happened.
‘Fun’, ain’t it Doc? 
We gals get to enjoy this level of performative “discourse” regularly…
From the article.
By that logic, a laptop is equally dangerous.
Turns out Hays Police Chief Don Scheibler isn’t an asshole.
Whoa, whoa - let’s not go overboard in giving him credit. In this particular case, he (eventually) took the correct position.
Upon re-reading the source material, it does seem that patient was caught using his vape pen, and that’s what prompted the rest of this fucked up story.
That the cops were intent upon seizing and charging him for the edibles is yet another added level of assholery.
*sighs
Re: Fire hazard or not.
If it was truly a fire hazard and/or they doctors just did not want him to self medicate - they could have just taken it away (or provide a safe location for it). Nurses shouldn’t be overriding doctors decisions except for special circumstances (e.g. a rushed doctor prescribing a wrong dose or a medication the patient is allergic to.)
No need to call the fucking cops on any one.
They still might have been assholes, but on a different level. 
As a former hospice RN, that person is not a caregiver. Even if it meant breaking the rules, I broke the rules if necessary. If you cannot break the rules in hospice, when can you?
Here’s a little more about what happened and how the reporting/opinion piece may have gotten it wrong.
https://www.hayspost.com/posts/106f7794-8246-4577-a9b4-e45b9d7dac96
Directly from the article: “Bretz said he’s not on oxygen.”
Maybe the room contains oxygen somewhere, but it is in no way “his” oxygen and is presumably sealed in tanks where the also-contained spark of a vape pen can’t ignite it. Even if all of that is incorrect, do you not think the nurse could have, oh, I don’t know, ASKED him not to use it, or even confiscated it themself? What kind of authoritarian nut thinks calling the cops was a reasonable first course of action here, under any circumstances??
ETA: Reading tcg550’s link above, it seems they DID confiscate it… and then called the cops anyway. There’s a whole lot of “we were only following orders/the law” in there, none of which seems to excuse this decision in my opinion. Also, the officers were polite and courteous… according to the police chief. Pardon me if I’m more inclined to take the word of the actual patient (who is not contacted for additional clarification at all in this “correction” article) saying they were intent on trying to nail him for having THC paste.
Yes, and a cell phone, which pretty much everyone carries on them.
