How a Single Oxycontin Pill Nearly Ruined One Man's Life

http://reason.com/archives/2012/08/06/how-a-single-oxycontin-pill-nearly-ruine

by mikecane • 14 years ago

55 112 14 years ago

uncoder0• 14 years ago

Again...this is why you never ever consent to a search. You have nothing to gain from consenting to a search or talking to a police officer. There is no way any person can be aware of all federal and local regulations. It is best to avoid possible self incrimination at all costs.

tptacek30• 14 years ago

I agree; also, this would have been a much more compelling story, and still totally suitable for _Reason_, if the moral had been "NEVER CONSENT TO SEARCHES" instead of "DRUG LAWS ARE RUINING PEOPLE'S LIVES".

(Again: that's because drug laws are ruining people's lives; just, not this guy's.)

A rule of thumb: if the police ask to search your car, they're not automatically allowed to --- or they wouldn't ask.

"Because we weren't carrying drugs" is a terrible reason to allow a search. Actually, "because I've never done drugs" is also a terrible reason. Get the wrong officer, and they will interpret the crap on your floor as "residue" and call in a drug dog; police drug dogs are scams --- the police can get them to bark any time they want. Your life won't be ruined when this happens, but you'll lose a lot of time.

Just say "Excuse me. I do not consent to any search. I'm sorry, officer. I do not consent to any search."

mullingitover4• 14 years ago

> Just say "Excuse me. I do not consent to any search. I'm sorry, officer. I do not consent to any search."

This is a very optimistic take on the police. A likely outcome would be for the police to hold you on the spot while they bring in a K9 unit. From there, the police interpret the dog's actions to indicate drugs will be found in the car, and from there it's probable cause and you're getting searched anyway. Only instead of a brief search you get the car gutted and worked over with a fine-toothed comb.

Permit2• 14 years ago

You're prescribing a bandaid solution to what is a much deeper problem. The reason you're avoiding a search is to prevent the system from screwing you over so deeply and completely. Where does this leave individuals like those in the original post?

Correct me if I'm wrong but your opinion seems to be that because he didn't know his right you can't feel sorry for him. This suggests to me that the punishment for not knowing the law is being subject to the law in all its ineptitude.

You're solving the wrong problem. What really concerns me is that you do it with such conviction.

tptacek30• 14 years ago

This piece has been written so as to maximally dramatize the experience of receiving a drug conviction in Florida (it's Reason, after all), but the core of the story can be summed up as:

* Man mistakenly allows police to search vehicle and is discovered to be carrying Oxy

* He pleads no-contest and as a result loses a lucrative job as a Merrill stock broker

* He receives probation, which includes a curfew (and pointless Narcotics Anonymous meetings)

* Record of the no-contest pleading hits his background checks and makes it harder to get a job

The details of watching movies in Narcotics Anonymous meetings, or of the scheduling of his nighttime MBA courses, seem besides the point (he continued going to class).

Stripped to its core, this is not a particularly compelling story about drug laws ruining (or "almost ruining") people's lives. I was surprised that the protagonist was so unsympathetic; a Reason story about Oxy is more likely to be about doctors being locked up for helping people in intractable pain. Those people (or at least the ones who it doesn't turn out are running illegal narcotic dealerships) are having their lives ruined by drug laws. This guy got a slap on the wrist, and had a job that won't tolerate even that.

mullingitover4• 14 years ago

> This guy got a slap on the wrist

Wow, that's an understatement. He got his life ruined, plain and simple. I'm surprised he didn't commit suicide.

The hilarious thing is how counterproductive this is for the state. He was earning a significant amount of income, and paying income tax on that. After losing his job the state and federal governments lost thousands that he was paying them in income tax revenue in the short term, and in the long term his reduced earning potential over his lifetime will cost tens or hundreds of thousands. All this to punish someone who was a productive member of society and who harmed no one with his actions.

tptacek30• 14 years ago

Even the article's headline says his life wasn't ruined, but you have him on the brink of suicide?

Can we oppose drug laws without surrendering our critical thinking faculties? I'd like to think we can.

avree• 14 years ago

I would say that he ruined his life, not the other way around.

1. He accepted what he knew was an illegal drug at the concert, and kept it, planning to 'give it away'. Who does this?

2. His passenger was carrying screens and a pipe, and he had an illegal prescription drug in his pocket. Why would he consent to a search?

3. He went to court and plead 'no contest'-this is equivalent to a guilty plea. Why not spend the time to tell his story? He gave the judge no opportunity to be lenient.

4. After getting on probation, he made no effort to educate HIMSELF on the rules. Instead, he operated on assumptions.

I'm not arguing that the drug laws are good or bad, but this guy screwed up.

simonbrown2• 14 years ago

> After losing his job the state and federal governments lost thousands that he was paying them in income tax revenue in the short term, and in the long term his reduced earning potential over his lifetime will cost tens or hundreds of thousands.

Someone else probably got his job, and paid the same taxes.

itmag• 14 years ago

I'm surprised he didn't commit suicide.

Whoa, what?

bestes• 14 years ago

Why is everyone so shocked about the idea this could lead to suicide? After reading this, if I were him, it would be downright appealing. (I am not him, to be very clear. Please don't send help).

mikecane6• 14 years ago

>>>I was surprised that the protagonist was so unsympathetic

I don't understand how you saw that. No prior arrests or convictions, claims to have never been addicted, first arrest of this type, had lucrative career removed from him and income potential ruined. Should they have added that he liked kittens?

tptacek30• 14 years ago

He did straight-up break the law, deliberately. He was carrying around recreational narcotics. And he didn't get prison time; he got probation, and presumably finished up his MBA. The list of things you can do to lose a broker job at Merrill is very long.

In other words, he got off a lot easier than a 19 year old carrying a bag of weed would on the West Side of Chicago.

There are much more sympathetic stories about people's lives being ruined by drug laws. For instance, there are doctors who specialize in the treatment of intractable pain --- as you can imagine, the life stories of the people who they are treating are heartbreaking. Some of those doctors have had their entire careers destroyed; some of them have received lengthy prison sentences. All because they prescribed drugs that can in fact be lawfully prescribed.

(There is a backstory to those stories too, of course; a terrible injustice has been done to those doctors, but not out of malice. It turns out that there really is a special breed of asshole doctors who prescribe things like fentanyl for recreational addicts.)

xiaoma3• 14 years ago

Such a heartless view at the top of an HN thread is one of the disappointing things I've seen in a long time. If you cannot feel any sympathy for a man who hurt no one and yet lost his job, prospects for future jobs and even prospects for renting a place to live... that speaks more about you than it does about the writing at Reason.

This story is about not only a wasteful, inefficient system and a six year injustice committed against a productive and from all accounts harmless man. It's about an the creation and perpetuation of an entire underclass.

tptacek30• 14 years ago

Thinking critically about the story, I have trouble getting past the narratives playing through my head about people who's lives truly were ruined by our drug laws, while at the same time overlooking the spectacularly bad judgement evinced and clumsily covered up by the writing in this story.

I am specifically not litigating the wastefulness, inefficiency, or injustice of our drug laws.

DanBC3• 14 years ago

> I was surprised that the protagonist was so unsympathetic;

Well, that's the point. When you have a doctor sorting something out for a very poor, dying, patient who is in immense pain most people are going to agree that the doctor should be protected.

So let's move down the scale of sympathy, and see if we can still get people to agree that drug laws are causing more harm than they solve. Because if we want to change drugs laws we want to talk about the majority of drug users, not about obscure edge cases.

So, we talk about a man with a small amount of an illegal substance; having broken one law (speeding); in a car with a friend with drug paraphernalia; having spent time with other drug users; who admits to trading (him saying "I was going to give it away" was stupid, he should have said he was going to flush it.) - now we have someone pretty unsympathetic.

We ask how society benefits from him finding it harder to get work; from spending all that time and money pushing him through a system; from him taking resources that could have been used on more serious addicts; etc.

With no previous convictions, and no evidence of drug misuse he could have been asked to be available for random drug testing for a year.

It's not as if he was working with machinery, or driving vehicles, or working with children. Drug use among bankers isn't going to end up with a factory on fire.

tptacek30• 14 years ago

Drug laws are bad.

Foy4• 14 years ago

Agreed, he had one pill in his pocket and apparently he doesn't do drugs at all.

Therefore he CLEARLY deserves to have his career ruined. Also, he should probably be humiliated and stigmatized for the next couple years... then for the rest of his life just to be on the safe side.

Foy4• 14 years ago

From my point of view, those are a series of very simple mistakes that anyone could make. He even made half of those mistakes under bad "professional" advice.

The whole "war on drugs" is absolutely crazy, by the way.

For what he did, he didn't deserve one percent of that punishment.

tptacek30• 14 years ago

His punishment was probation and mandatory attendance for a year of Narcotics Anonymous meetings, where he repeatedly watched "Sleepless in Seattle" and "You've Got Mail".

The criminal record itself was expunged.

He lost his job. But that wasn't punishment. Thousands of people have lost jobs simply because of bad credit reports.

drats• 14 years ago

Your central thesis seems to be that drug laws do have a problem but they could have picked a better example, that's not much of a thesis. Besides they do pick better examples, they are just reporting this one as well and he was significantly harassed by an agent of the state ringing up every place he applied to for a job (a point you pass over in silence). Your whole schtick here about how it's not a pure doctor who missed out on crossing a 't' and dotting an 'i' when prescribing a drug and then was subsequently raided by a SWAT team that shot his puppy is a non-argument, they are just reporting data as it comes in to fit with a wider campaign you seemingly agree with on many points. I would guess going by your comments you've had a bone to pick with Reason for a while now and you are using this as your platform to express it. However, take note of the number of replies you are getting. I mean I just think you are just being argumentative and weird (copyright notice in your about page? wtf) but someone even called you hateful.

tptacek30• 14 years ago

My thesis has more to do with _Reason_ than it does with drug laws. In fact, I'm not sure my thesis has anything to do with drug laws. Our drug laws are transparently retarded.

The guy who called me hateful also wrote a haiku about me. Think of that whatever you will. I'm just procrastinating on HN (I a client meeting today that keeps getting delayed, so I can't sink my teeth into anything). I do not see this thread as any kind of epic battleground in which social justice issues are going to be resolved.

mikecane6• 14 years ago

From time to time I need pain medication for my back. In the past I would carry a loose pill wrapped in a tissue. I am NEVER doing that again.

jfoutz2• 14 years ago

IANAL, but i'm pretty sure if you can show you have a prescription for the drugs, it'll get thrown out of court.

You might get arrested, but telling the police to call your doctor or pharmacist will likely be enough to avoid all that.

You only get really screwed when you're not legally allowed to posses the drugs.

Alex3917• 14 years ago

It depends on the state, but there are definitely states where carrying prescription drugs outside of their container is illegal even if you have a valid prescription.

mikecane6• 14 years ago

>>>You might get arrested

And that can be hell in and of itself. You can get a prick cop or prick detainment officer and spend up to 72 hours incommunicado, with a communal toilet to shit/piss in, and cheese sandwiches you wouldn't give to your worst enemy.

jfoutz2• 14 years ago

Sounds like James got pretty worked over. James has no business working in finance.

First, don't accept gift drugs. Seriously, that's a stupid move.

Second, don't let the police search your car without a warrant. He's coming home from a concert, in some big rush or what? you can wait 5 hours while the police decide what to do.

Third, fight in court. You're far better off dumping tens of thousands of dollars into a lawyer to preserve your lifetime earnings.

He seems way to naive to deal with the moment to moment tension, and didn't display any long term planning when going to court. What, exactly, was he bringing to the table as a finance guy?

ars• 14 years ago

I would like to know who the judge was, I'd also like to read the court record for myself.

But apparently it's expunged, so it doesn't exist and I can't.

It's not normal for a judge to "Stack on Penalties" for no reason, but of course we can't read the reason for outself.

So many of these type of internet stories turn out to be not true, or at least written in a very misleading way, leaving out very important info.

tptacek30• 14 years ago

It's possible "stacking on penalties" is the author's interpretation of what was a totally normal set of probation conditions; the author's way of pointing out, "you think probation isn't a big deal, but look what it actually means".

summerdown22• 14 years ago

I don't understand American drug laws. Who benefits from this? It seems completely dystopian and a waste of people's lives.

mullingitover4• 14 years ago

Drug law in the US, whatever its original intent, is now largely a fiercely-defended welfare system for police and prison guards. Any time the subject of sensible reform comes up, these groups fight it vigorously.

alan_cx• 14 years ago

Drug dealers. That is who benefits from it most. The prohibition makes drugs one of the most profitable commodities in existence. That is why people are literally giving their lives up for it. The mark up makes Apple look negligent to its share holders.

Question is, why does government support the profits of drug dealers?

garethsprice• 14 years ago

Politicians who need to appear "tough on drugs" to get elected.

debacle3• 14 years ago

We're only getting half of the story here, and it seems pretty clear that the issue here was James's choice of legal counsel over anything else.

eco2• 14 years ago

People here are fixating too much on how he could have avoided receiving this overly harsh sentence. The article is trying to draw attention to the fact that the sentence itself is overly harsh, not that he could have gotten out of it had he played his cards better.

Teaching people how to properly interact with police and the court system is all fine and good but it'd be better to fix the root cause of the problem if we can. These consequences should not even be possible regardless of what mistakes the person committing the crime made in his interactions with authorities.

debacle3• 14 years ago

We don't have enough of the story to know how harsh the sentence was, and James's mistakes started long before his interactions with the authorities.

bitwize2• 14 years ago

When drug laws add to the permanent underclass they were intended to create, it's business as usual.

When they catch one of the 1%, suddenly it's news.

Maybe now people will take a hard look at overturning some of these laws, but it's a shame that the USA is government of, by, and for the rich; and bad laws are only unfair when they unfairly snag the rich.

eco2• 14 years ago

The 1%? He was a graduate student and broker. I doubt he was even making a significant amount of money.

fl3tch• 14 years ago

Exactly, it's news when it ruins a middle class white man's life, but nobody cares about the millions of people born in poor urban neighborhoods whose lives were ruined from the day they born, because their community was ravaged by drugs, crime and the revolving door of incarceration, and where they have no role models except drug dealers and prostitutes. I think it was Lupe Fiasco who said, if you have no chance at life, why even try?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccx7xYBArBc

The solution is always to crack down harder with stricter penalties and longer sentences to maintain the permanent underclass.

rondon1• 14 years ago

A. I agree that there are much sadder stories about how drug laws and poverty put people into situations where they have no other choice.

B. He is not the 1%. If a 1%er kid got pulled over with a bunch of drugs in his pockets it would be a totally different story. He would probably not consent to a search because his lawyer would have already told him not to. Even if he had consented to a search, the cop probably would get a call from the sheriff, governor, attorney general, etc.. telling him that the kid should be let go. Even if the kid was arrested, a team of lawyers would be searching for loop holes and connections to the DA to get the case dropped. Even if the kid was convicted, the lawyers would appeal. And large donations would be made to the election campaigns of govenor,DA, etc.. to try and get a pardon or retrial.

schrijver• 14 years ago

How much % of Americans can afford to go to grad school? 1% doesn’t seem too far off…

bitwize2• 14 years ago

He is not the 1%. If a 1%er kid got pulled over with a bunch of drugs in his pockets it would be a totally different story. He would probably not consent to a search because his lawyer would have already told him not to. Even if he had consented to a search, the cop probably would get a call from the sheriff, governor, attorney general, etc.. telling him that the kid should be let go. Even if the kid was arrested, a team of lawyers would be searching for loop holes and connections to the DA to get the case dropped. Even if the kid was convicted, the lawyers would appeal. And large donations would be made to the election campaigns of govenor,DA, etc.. to try and get a pardon or retrial.

And his ex-CIA-chief daddy would get all of his criminal records classified so that no one would find out and he can run for President. Apparently there are some damning things about George W. Bush in Dallas Observer police blotters from the 80s; anybody here have a copy of those?

You're right, though, this guy was a ten-percenter. He's still white and wealthy and not the intended target of the drug laws.

mullingitover4• 14 years ago

This is not an example of the 1% getting in the news.

This is: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19601277/ns/us_news-crime_and_co...

"They found less than an ounce of marijuana along with Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and Adderall, which is used for attention deficit disorder, he said."

Spoiler: He got off without being charged by entering a 90-day treatment program.

madsushi• 14 years ago

This is natural selection at work. Let's look at all of the subject's bad decisions that led him into this situation:

* Guy accepts illegal narcotics

* Guy decides to carry those illegal narcotics around in his vehicle, the least-defensible place possible

* Guy gives a ride to somebody with drug paraphernalia

* Guy then drives fast enough to attract police attention

At this point, he's riding pretty dirty. How many of you would put yourself in this precarious situation? Hopefully that number is zero. He follows it up with:

* Allowing the search

* Pleading no-contest

* Violating his parole

An educated guy agrees to a search WHILE CARRYING? And a successful Merrill broker couldn't afford an attorney for this relatively minor charge? And decides that no-contest is the best option here?

The fact is that as soon as he accepted the drugs at the concert, he accepted the penalty of being shunned by companies. As long as companies have the prerogative to not hire drug users, being involved with drugs in any way is going to have a negative impact. The fact that he then handled every other decision in the process incorrectly does not help him either.

cheddarmint2• 14 years ago

I think the guy made a couple serious missteps here that created a bad situation and then made it a lot worse:

1. He got into the car carrying narcotics that he wasn't legally allowed to use.

2. He accepted legal advice without doing his homework:

"After being assured that the penalty would be light," James told Reason in an email, "it turned into a bigger ordeal than I could ever imagine."

The article makes it sound like the judge at the bond hearing advised him to plead no contest, assuring him that the penalty would be light, and he accepted that advice without any further thought. It doesn't sound like he even hired an attorney:

"The judge who heard James' case accepted the no-contest plea. Then he began stacking on penalties."

Were I in this guy's situation, I would not gone to my court date without a lawyer, a plan for getting everything dropped or sealed, and an idea of the worst-case scenario.

3. He was ignorant of the licensing requirements of his profession:

Having worked in finance for the last 2.5 years (admittedly, on the development rather than business side), it seems very unlikely to me that this fellow would have gotten his Series 7 license and started employment as a stock broker without being forced to learn the requirements for reporting legal problems like this.

The moral of the story is:

1. Do your homework, especially on criminal legal matters.

2. Do not blindly accept legal advice (or narcotics!) from strangers.

3. Mount an aggressive defense to any criminal matters.

cheez• 14 years ago

This is normal. Think of incentives:

* Police pull guy over -> have to make it worthwhile

* Guy pleads guilty -> throw the book at him

* Writing the book -> Employs many people

This is normal and occurs in every area of law. Your first and last statement to the police should always be "I'm not saying a word until I talk to my lawyer." The police are not your friend.

epoxyhockey• 14 years ago

The biggest takeaway from this story is that expunging items from your record does not effectively happen anymore. Private data companies pick up this info (before it is expunged) and retain/report it forever.

If this incident happened 2 decades ago, the gentleman would probably have gotten his stock broker job back.

thaumaturgy5• 14 years ago

If you happen to make the local news for an arrest, and have an even slightly unique name, you'll also find that Google has a very long memory indeed.

ygmelnikova• 14 years ago

"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQeVIJ8e_z8

cheddarmint2• 14 years ago

More accurately:

"How to let a single oxycontin pill nearly ruin your life."

tzs• 14 years ago

> James told the officer he received the pill from a friend at the concert, but that he had never tried Oxycontin, and intended to give it away.

Probably better to not say you intend to give it away. Better would be to say that you were going to take it home, Google to find out how to safely dispose of it, and then dispose of it.

How a Single Oxycontin Pill Nearly Ruined One Man's Life

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