Missouri Police Search Cancer Patient’s Room for Weed

Nurse Reports Cancer Patient to The Police For Medical Marijuana Use

The last thing a weed user wants is to get busted by the police. But one filmed incident in Missouri left a sour taste in viewers’ mouths, as police officers searched a cancer patient’s hospital room for marijuana.

Nolan Sousley is a stage 4 pancreatic cancer patient who has stopped taking chemotherapy treatments – meaning he is likely approaching the end of his life. This diagnosis can bring a lot of pain to patients, and many use cannabis to cope with it. Missouri had not legalized medical marijuana at the time of this case.

In a Facebook Live video that went viral, police officers can be seen searching Sousley’s hospital room. Sousley narrates, saying, “They already told me I’m gonna get arrested.”

An officer interjects, saying, “if we find marijuana, we’ll give you a citation.” Yikes.

It seems seriously harsh to search a cancer patient’s room.

So, How Did This Search Come About?

An officer says the cops received a call about marijuana possibly being in the room.

According to Sousley’s partner, Amber Kidwell, a security guard and nurse from the hospital called the police due to complaints of a marijuana-like odour.

“There is no way they could smell it, doc, because I don’t smoke it,” Sousley says. “I don’t ever use a ground-up plant. It’s an oil I use in a capsule, there’s no smoking it. I take it like a pill.”

Luckily, no marijuana was found and no citation was issued, but the video still rubbed viewers the wrong way. One of the many disturbing aspects of the instance was the search process itself. One of Sousley’s bags had personal belongings in it:

“It has my final day things in there,” Sousley says, “and nobody’s going to dig in it. It’s my stuff, it’s my final hour stuff is in that bag. It’s my right to have my final — I’m not digging it down here in front of everybody.”

Taking away a hospital patient’s method of coping with pain is seriously whack. As laws and attitudes towards marijuana change, hopefully cases like these won’t happen again.

You can watch the video here.