Missouri man battling stage four cancer says police targeted him, searched his hospital room for marijuana
Raw video: Police search the room of a cancer patient after receiving a call saying someone smelt marijuana comes from the room.
Police reportedly searched the hospital room of a cancer patient for marijuana after someone called to report the smell of weed coming from his room in Bolivar, Missouri.
Nolan Sousley, who has stage 4 pancreatic cancer, captured their search on a Facebook Live video last Wednesday that has since gone viral.
The Bolivar Police Department had gotten a call that the smell of marijuana was coming from Sousley’s room at Citizens Memorial Hospital last week, so they followed up on the call, despite Sousley allegedly telling them he had only taken THC oil capsules before going into the hospital.
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“I had some capsules that had some THC oil in them,” Sousley can be heard saying in the video. “I took them outside on the parking lot.”
Meanwhile, in the video, an officer can be seen going through one of Sousley’s bags while another stands at the back of the room.
“If we find marijuana, we’ll give you a citation. We’re not taking you down to the county jail,” the officer at the back of the room said.
Marijuana is illegal in Missouri after a November 2018 bill was passed to allow it to be used for medical purposes, though the regulations have not been formalized. Until that occurs, possessing marijuana is still illegal.
At one point in the video, a woman in a white lab coat walked into the room. The officers explained the situation to her, adding that Sousley had another bag he wouldn’t let them search.
“I’m not letting them dig through it. It has my final-day things in there, and nobody’s going to dig in it,” Sousley told her.
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Eventually, Sousley stopped recording, but later told a local outlet that he did let the officers go through his bag. They didn’t find any marijuana, The Washington Post reported.
Sousley’s video has since been viewed more than 771,000 times and the Bolivar Police Department’s Facebook page has been shut down because it was “inundated by negative feedback,” Bolivar Police Chief Mark Webb said.
The hospital also later apologized for the incident.
“We pride ourselves in providing compassionate care to all patients and we fell short of expectations,” Tamera Heitz-Peek, a hospital spokeswoman told The Post.
“We apologize to our patient and his family and friends who were affected by our actions. We are reviewing the incident and will retrain our employees in the core values and the importance of respect and dignity to our patients and the community,” she added.
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