WEIGHT AND SAMPLING
In some jurisdictions, not only is the identity of the illicit drug important, but also the quantity. This can be understood in three contexts. First, there is a desire among prosecutors and police to concentrate their law enforcement efforts on major drug dealers rather than the low-level user. If the possession of large quantities of drugs is punished more harshly than small amounts, then this might discourage large-scale drug dealers from plying their trade. The important question here is what constitutes the weight of the drug? Illicit drugs are seldom sold in a pure form. They are almost always adulterated, or cut with other substances. In most states that have weight laws, it is the aggregate weight that counts. This is the weight of the drug and any cutting agents present. So, for example, many states have laws that penalize someone with life imprisonment who possesses a substance containing cocaine or heroin that is over a certain aggregate weight. The cocaine or heroin doesn’t have to weigh that much, it is the total weight that counts. So an exhibit that contains 1 g of cocaine cut with 650 g of sugar, can still qualify under this law. Of course, it goes with out saying that there must be proof that the balance that is used to determine these aggregate weights is accurate. Another context where weight is important is where a government wishes to punish the possession of one form of a drug more harshly than another. This is the way that the Federal Government sanctions cocaine. Under Federal law, the possession of equal weights of cocaine flake (or salt) and crack carry vastly different penalties, with the crack form carrying a much higher penalty. Weight considerations also come into play at the opposite end of the spectrum, where there is very little material present. In some states, there must be a useable quantity of a drug present in order for a law to be broken. A useable quantity is defined as an amount of a drug that is likely to have a demonstrable psychoactive effect on an aver age person. Mere traces are not enough. There is also another weight-related consideration and that is sampling. This comes into play when there are very large exhibits or when there are a large number of exhibits, and the question arises as to how much of the material must actually be analyzed. In the case of large exhibits, it is usually not necessary to identify every particle in the exhibit. However, if the entire mass of substance is to be characterized as being or containing a controlled substance, the samples taken for analysis must be representative of the whole exhibit. For example, the exhibit depicted in Figure 1 is a brick of marihuana that was compressed in a trash compactor. Several samples were taken from the exterior and interior of the brick and independently tested in order to show that the entire 38 pounds was marihuana. Another major sampling issue arises with cases that have a large number of exhibits. Many times a drug chemist will receive a case that consists of hundreds or thousands of exhibits. It would be unduly consumptive of time and effort to fully analyze every exhibit. However, if one is to report that all of the exhibits contain a particular illicit drug, then it is necessary to show that the samples that were taken for analysis are representative of the whole. Let’s look at one possible approach. Suppose that a case contains 1000 exhibits. Five hundred exhibits consist of white powders, each wrapped in foil. Each appears to be approximately the same size and weight. The other 500 exhibits are small, plastic baggies each containing approximately the same amount of white powder. At the start, these would be treated as two types of exhibits. A random sample of the foil-wrapped drugs would be opened, examined, and weighed. If they all appeared the same and weighed approximately the same, then one might assume for now that all 500 contain the same thing. The same would then be done on a random sample of the plastic-wrapped exhibits. Then a random sample of each of the two types would be tested and the drugs identified. The total weight of each 500 exhibits would then be estimated and the qualitative and quantitative results would be reported for the whole case. If, at any time, one or more of the randomly selected exhibits appeared to be different in appearance or chemical properties than the rest, then the analysis scheme would have to be changed. Finally there is the opposite situation, where there is very little of a drug present in an exhibit. Examples of this are “roaches” (marihuana cigarette butts), “cookers” (usually bottle caps containing the residue of injected heroin), or even bloody syringes that were used to inject heroin that may contain traces of the drug. States that have useable quantity laws require that a certain minimum amount of a drug be present in order to prosecute someone for possession of an illicit drug. It is unlikely that any of the three examples given above would qualify as useable quantities of drug under these statutes. In states where there are no useable quantity laws, then these exhibits could be analyzed and reported out as controlled substances. In some cases, there may not be enough material to do a complete analysis and a confirmatory test may not be done. This will be discussed later.
FIGURE 1 A 38.5 lb brick of marihuana. This solid mass of plant material was formed in a trash compactor and left in a stairwell in a college dormitory basement. Prior to analysis, the brick was X-rayed to make sure that it wasn’t booby trapped.
