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State v. Carmichael8/29/2002
se for "a woman weighing eighty pounds . . . may be a little bit lower."
According to him, the "amount bought on the street . . . is usually far from a hundred percent pure." However, the .05 grams he posited in his study was based on "one hundred percent pure drug." As Read understood it, laboratories typically "measure a gross weight [of a sample] . . . so when they weigh something . . . [such as the residue,] the entire weight is not drug."
With respect to the instant case, Read opined that .002 grams of methamphetamine would be equivalent to a few salt granules. However, since the substance was residue which had been scraped from Defendant's presumably already smoked pipe, Read believed the residue would consist of "almost all inactive, inert material with very little drug." In conclusion, Read opined that .002 grams of methamphetamine was not an effective illicit dose, was unsaleable, and was incapable of producing a "pharmacological effect":
[DEFENSE ATTORNEY] Q: Doctor Read, in your expert opinion would two milligrams or .002 grams be an effective dose or illicit dose?
A: No.
Q: Why not?
A: Because it would not even be effective for these other actions which require less. We are talking about an average adult. I don't think that -- well, even in a child for ADHD, there would be a noticeable difference. It is an extremely small amount.
Q: Would .002 grams or two milligrams be usable as an item for sale?
A: I don't know anybody would want to buy it if they can't use it for anything. I mean in the laboratory we might give a dose that size to a physician or rats, but we would never buy it because we would not know its purity. We buy from drug companies where we know absolute purity.
Q: In your expert opinion, could two milligrams produce a pharmacological effect on a user?
A: Not in a human.
On cross-examination, the prosecution established that "if a drug is not very effective by the oral route, it takes far less by the inhalational route" to obtain an effect; that Defendant was "20 years old, 5'8" tall, and weighed 115 [pounds]"; that Read had not "personally used methamphetamine"; that Read had reviewed the police reports prior to the hearing but had not met Defendant, had not "look at [Defendant's] . . . weight," had not observed Defendant "under the influence of methamphetamine," and had no "familiarity . . . with Defendant's drug use history, if any." (Emphasis added.)
Also at the hearing on July 1, 1999, the prosecutor called MPD Officer Michael Callinan as a witness. Callinan stated that he had participated in over three hundred investigations involving illegal narcotics and had conducted over one hundred narcotics investigations involving methamphetamine. He explained that illicit users typically utilize drug paraphernalia like Defendant's glass pipe, straws, and metal scrapers (Exhibits 1, 2, and 3 respectively). According to Callinan, "the methamphetamine is loaded into the pipe usually with a cut straw into the ball and to the pipe." He explained that, when a user is "low on product," the user "will [use the metal scraper to] scrape the residue into a grouping or small bunch, and then . . . resmoke the residue."
On cross-examination, Callinan reported that he had not received a degree from an accredited college in the area of physical or chemical sciences, he was never assigned to Defendant's case, and his knowledge of the case was limited to " he photos and explaining what the evidence is that was recovered."
In its decision, the court indicated the following:
THE COURT: We know the Vance ca
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