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posted by CoolHand on Thursday May 14 2015, @07:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the big-love-big-drug-db dept.

For the most part, attorney Tyler Ayres practices criminal law in Draper, Utah. If you Google him, the first result reads “Utah DUI Attorney.” But recently, Ayres has grown into a de facto voice against the third-party doctrine and Utah’s drug database, a combination allowing authorities to access citizens' prescription drug histories nearly carte blanche. Ayres has represented at least a dozen people with unforeseen issues because of this arrangement. The worse abuse he’s seen involves two of his clients: Candy Holmes and Russell Smithey.

Both Holmes and Smithey have extensive criminal histories. In a recent interview, Smithey conceded that he was an intravenous drug user and has since completed a drug court program. In 2011, his partner, Holmes, was picking up her prescription at a pharmacy near their home in Vernal, Utah. Both Holmes and Smithey regularly took Oxycodone and Methadone.

Ben Murray, an officer with the Vernal City Police Department, watched this Holmes encounter with the pharmacist, according to Smithey and confirmed by deposition documents. Murray says that “she was so intoxicated that she couldn’t even get her money out.”

Smithey tells the story differently. He says Murray saw Holmes take some of the medication and get into her car to drive home. It would have taken longer than the drive home for the pills to set in, he explains. Either way, the undisputed facts are that Murray contacted dispatch and Holmes was arrested in her driveway after failing a sobriety test.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/ill-never-ask-for-another-pain-pill-again-℞-database-damage-in-utah/

[Related]: The big drug database in the sky: One firefighter’s year-long legal nightmare

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Zinho on Thursday May 14 2015, @03:46PM

    by Zinho (759) on Thursday May 14 2015, @03:46PM (#182953)

    Vernal, like may cities in Utah, is only about 25-50% Mormon by religion. It's also an oil town, with lots of workers (migrant or otherwise) coming in for jobs on rigs. Drug abuse is common among low-paid rig crews (meth, especially). Not so surprising, then, to hear about methadone or hydrocodone abuse.

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  • (Score: 2) by Aichon on Thursday May 14 2015, @04:01PM

    by Aichon (5059) on Thursday May 14 2015, @04:01PM (#182960)

    The guy has at least some affiliation with the Church of Latter Day Saints (a.k.a. Mormons) and has a home there in town according to the Ars article, so we can't really dismiss him as being a transient coming in for a job.

    • (Score: 2) by Zinho on Thursday May 14 2015, @04:37PM

      by Zinho (759) on Thursday May 14 2015, @04:37PM (#182980)

      I can see how you'd come to those conclusions, but I think you're making a few unwarranted assumptions. Having a job at the Deseret Industries thrift store makes you a Mormon as much as working at Chick-Fil-A makes you a Baptist or working at Hobby Lobby makes you part of the Assemblies of God. I also think you're reading too much into the use of the word "home" in the article; it would be appropriate to use even if the plaintiffs are renters at an apartment. Given the amount of money oil companies throw around the home may even be owned by the company they work for, and it would still be proper to refer to it as the plaintiff's home.

      My response to the "milk not drugs" post was trying to point out that stereotyping all Utah citizens as Mormons was an over-generalization, and I'm going to stand by that. I'll even extend that and say that despite the teachings of the Mormon church there are plenty of them with drug addiction problems (see Glenn Beck [wikipedia.org] as the poster child for that). Characterizing Utah as the land of milk and ovaltine minimizes the severity of the very real drug problems in the state, and unnecessarily dilutes the conversation we should be having about police over-reach and systemic abuses of the government databases the state has set up.

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      • (Score: 2) by Aichon on Thursday May 14 2015, @05:03PM

        by Aichon (5059) on Thursday May 14 2015, @05:03PM (#182997)

        Sorry, I seem to have miscommunicated. I wasn't suggesting he was a member of the Church of LDS. I was merely pointing out that we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the possibility of him being a member, which it had seemed to me was what you were doing. I actually think we're on the same page, since I don't disagree with any of what you said in this last post.