Say a comatose person is revived, tells ER he shot heroin–which they have no reason to doubt–and when he bought it he tells them, or they find a packet stamped BrandX (which is not that unusual for some markets).
I’ve talked to a detective (NYC) who said they don’t have to tell the police anything; that even a policeman who takes you into the hospital hasn’t who seen dope or you getting high there’s no crime, and even syringes in a (heroin) kit can be shown to be legal.
But I also remember years ago trying to help an older man in the street nodding out and collapsing who, after I told him to stay put crumpled on the sidewalk, then literally dragged himself away to avoid the ambulance. He could have had many reasons, of course, but at the time I thought it was to avoid arrest.
Is what the detective told me new(ish) policy? Varies by jurisdiction?
Yesterday I forced the door and edged myself into a tight toilet room and held a young man (a beautiful boy, actually) who was unconscious, cradling his head from entering the toilet as he lay crumpled on the floor. (Whew–got the MPSIMS out of the way.) I checked if he wasn’t dead, wiped the sweat off him, etc. He came to just as the bus showed up, and said “heroin” after I loudly and repeatedly asked what drug he had taken (no head injury) so I could tell EMS.
Now, given that an addict has only the word of the dealer to go on, heroin, like many street drugs, is often branded, and if not, may be referred to as a specific type (real or unreal). It would seem to me that the toxicology of the patients may vary as to the poisons.
Does someone note the brand, or something similar, about the street drug for hospital use or to inform the police?
Eg:
Dr: “Kid comes in with eyeballs spinning. Don’t usually see that. Said he too blue meth.”
Cop: “Yeah, Phoenix police just arrested two junkies with blue meth. Interesting.”
Leo In response to the question “Does someone note the brand, or something similar, about the street drug for hospital use or to inform the police?”, the short answer is no.
In response to the whole OP…
ER personnel are under no obligation to tell the police anything about any individual’s drug use and in most cases are prohibited by privacy laws from doing so. Medical personnel have SOME things that we are required to report, gunshot wounds, stab wounds, abuse of certain vulnerable people, and some communicable diseases.
One of the reasons for this is, we want people to come to us without fear of legal consequences.
The concept of branding when it comes to street drugs such as heroin is laughable. Not saying it doesn’t exist, it does, just that it isn’t going to mean anything useful to us.
Now we do sometimes talk to the police about unusual drug use we see (blue meth).
Just not in any way that links to a particular person. For instance we may say " Hey Officer Friendly, I had three Coricidin overdoses last night. Are you seeing that coming back?" Potentially useful information exchanged, no names used.
Where are you getting these ideas about “branded” street drugs from? Breaking Bad? Since you mention “blue meth” specifically, which is of course a BB thing (and yes a few cases have cropped up of life imitating art, but still).
I think the nodding old man was probably trying to get away because, when someone ODs and goes to the hospital, they are injected with something that clears all the opiates out of their system RIGHT NOW and makes them throw up violently.
Thus blowing their high. :rolleyes:
I once, when very young, dragged a girl I was visiting into a cold shower and started slapping her because she had stopped breathing. When she came to, she was mad at me for bringing her out of it.
Also, the only drug I have ever heard of being “branded” (besides, like “Panama Red” or “Columbian Gold”) is LSD; and I believe that was a thing of the past.
I did once talk to a guy who believed that the heroin dealers had a rotating schedule of who was going to have the good stuff that week. (Rather than it being a function of which dealer was late on his rent, had to fix his car, etc., which is what I would imagine actually governs things like that.)
First, it is not illegal to use heroin. It’s illegal to sell it and to possess it ( and of course to use it one would normally have possessed it at least momentarily) but one can’t be arrested simply because of an OD. In fact, (and this is fairly new) in NY the OD victim won’t even be charged with possession if s/he is still in possession after the OD ( has some more in a pocket or something)
It also protects people who sought help ( by calling 911 or taking the victim to a hospital etc)
With all public health issues, they will try to track down the source of the problem. You can bet your bippy on that!
So yes they will want to know where it came from, who sold it to them, etc. And the person providing the drug would be looking at manslaughter/murder charges if the person dies. That is a police thing.
The issue of branded heroin (which certainly does exist) usually comes to light when a certain brand is causing a huge amount of ODs, and often times that’s due to fentanyl content, and often times that information is made public
Whether users then avoid or actively seek out that particular brand as a result of its reputation as “killer stuff” can certainly go either way.
Heroin is most definitely branded at the street sale level. Back in my days working in drug enforcement, my favorite brand was “Shotgun Suicide.” Because, hey, who doesn’t want something called “Shotgun Suicide?” It seems like a good idea…
In Europe you’d be hard pressed to find an ecstasy tablet that wasn’t branded. They often use well known logos such as coca cola, mitsibushi, red bull, and the detailing in them is very high quality considering how small the pills are. The recipies of various tablets differ, so some people prefer certain brands, for example “I like Doves, they are strong pills”.
Overwhelmingly the branding is used by the manufacturers to give the impression that a new pill is out and you might as well try it as it might be good quality- in reality being just as bad as previous batches. You can even keep the same press and merely change the colour of the tablet. People will be excited at the prospect of a new recipe, hoefully they will be stronger than the previous variant. Now there’s even a website called Pill Report where people review E tabs, to help you buy the good ones. But as this is an illegal product it’s not like you can go to another shop to buy the right ones, you can only really buy what’s available.