Page:Jones v. State, 357 Ark. 545 (2004).pdf/16

560 appellate courts, in order to sustain a conviction for possession of narcotics when the amount of narcotic is so small as not to be within the realm of an uninformed layman's knowledge of its usability, there must be evidence as to the sufficiency of the narcotic to be usable under the known practice of narcotic addicts. See State v. Quinones, supra; State v. Urias, supra.

In this case, Cindy Moran, a chemist at the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory, testified to the amount of substance seized. With respect to the five baggies, Ms. Moran testified that: "On [Bag 1], it was .2472 grams of methamphetamine and nicotinamide. [Bags 2 through 5] was 0.3 percent methamphetamine with nicotinamide and the weight of the powder was .6367 grams." Ms. Moran went on to testify that she separated Bag 1 and did not perform a quantitative analysis on it because the substance found was weaker than the substance in Bags 2 through 5. She then testified that the percentage of methamphetamine found in Bags 2 through 5 was 0.3 percent. The total substance weighed .6367 grams. Thus, Ms. Moran concluded that there were only 1.9 milligrams of methamphetamine in Bags 2 through 5. She also testified that Bag 1 could not have contained more that 0.3 percent methamphetamine. Therefore, a maximum of .7 milligrams of methamphetamine could have been found in Bag 1, and the total weight of controlled substance was not more than 2.6 milligrams.

After determining the total amount of illegal substance seized, the following colloquy ensued: Q. Is there a useable amount?

A. Well, we always say that if we can identify it we can test it and we can get results, then, in our minds, yes, there was some there.

Q. Are you trying to tell this jury that you know that this amount could be used to intoxicate a person or place them under the influence of methamphetamine?

A. I can't testify to that. In an attempt to salvage its opinion, the majority inserts the critical words "usable amount" into Ms. Moran's statement. Her testimony,