Drugs on drug on drugs. That was my day today. My supervisor dropped me right off with the two ladies of drug chemistry lab for the day and I began my observations. Basically, it is their job to get evidence from the drug vault on DA request cases (meaning cases they plan to prosecute) and check to make sure that the weight and substance is correct. So, they spend their entire day making sure that marijuana is marijuana and cocaine is cocaine etc. Some highlights of my day included watching them weigh about 20 pounds of marijuana and seeing the mass spectrometer in action. I had seen the mass spec in a bunch of crime shows, so I felt like I was in the heart of the action! It was intriguing to learn about the limits for each drug amount that correlate to felonies and trafficking charges. For example, I learned that if you the limit for a trafficking charge is 28g and you have 27g of a cutting agent mixed with 1g of a controlled substance, you would get indicted for the entire mixture, not just the presence of this substance. Basically, sucks for you.
For the last hour of the day I was picked up by the man in charge of toxicology and blood alcohol testing. He was very nice, but clearly not very adept at small talk considering he asked me if I had any questions about every 30 seconds. Overall, while it was not my particular area of interest, it was still fascinating to learn about exactly how drug and DWI convictions happen.
Tomorrow, I am hitting the streets and will be on call for any crimes in Wake County. I am not sure what I will be faced with, but my supervisor said that I may get a homicide if I’m lucky…although don’t know how common it is to commit one’s murderous acts on a Wednesday afternoon. We will see.
Side note: I have made friends with the Wake County Sheriff who works in house and was promised a Chik-Fil-A milkshake from him. Again, we will see.
For my picture, I was very excited because I finagled my way into getting an official badge for a few hours to avoid having an escort during my lunch break. Sadly, very shortly after returning my supervisor whisked it away and I have now felt the hollow feeling after power being brutally stripped from oneself.