We often report on these pages that someone has been caught with drugs. In its statements, the police do not provide the weight of the seized drugs; they refer to sale portions. On Monday, March 20, we wrote that in Jelenia Góra, a 20-year-old man was arrested with 130 portions of marijuana. He had hidden the drugs in his jacket pocket. 130 portions—it seems like a lot. Can such an amount be hidden in a jacket?
It turns out that it can. The number of portions of seized drugs depends, among other things, on how they were packaged. As istotne.pl was told by Paweł Petrykowski, spokesperson for the Lower Silesian Provincial Police Headquarters in Wrocław, portions can be larger or smaller. There are situations in which a portion means 0.1 g. Generally, however, an average figure of 0.2–0.25 grams is used. “You can often see this in our photographs,” says the Provincial Police Headquarters spokesperson. “Some drugs are in a single bag, while others are divided into portions. There is no single standard.”
The portions of so-called piko, or methamphetamine, are counted differently, as is ecstasy (the number of tablets is simply given). It can nevertheless be assumed that the 20-year-old man caught with marijuana in Jelenia Góra had—as much as!—26 grams of marijuana on him. (As Edyta Bagrowska from the Jelenia Góra Municipal Police Headquarters told us, the police seized a fairly large bag of this drug.) The young man was probably dealing drugs.
We reported in February this year what happens to drugs intercepted by officers.