People v. Diamond

Opinion

COUGHLIN, J.

Defendant appeals his convictions of the offenses of selling the dangerous drug “LSD” on two occasions, i.e., violations of Health and Safety Code section 11912.

On the first occasion, the subject of the sale, described by defendant as “heavy acid,” consisted of 19 blue tablets, and on the second occasion consisted of 100 blue tablets. A chemist who analyzed two tablets from the first sale and three tablets from the second sale, determined each tablet contained 200 micrograms of LSD.

Defendant contends under the decision in

People

v.

Leal,

64 Cal.2d 504 [50 Cal.Rptr. 777, 413 P.2d 665], a conviction of the offense of selling a dangerous drug is not supported by the evidence unless it is shown the quantity of the drug sold was “usable”; proof the quantity sold was a usable quantity must show it was sufficient “to provide a narcotic effect”; and the evidence in the case at bench does not support such a showing.

The court in

Leal

considered the question whether possession of a minute crystalline residue of a narcotic constituted the offense of possession of a narcotic; analyzed prior decisions on the subject, including

People

v.

Sullivan,

234 Cal.App.2d 562 [44 Cal.Rptr. 524]; and concluded its opinion with the following determinative language: “Hence, the possession of a minute crystalline residue of narcotic useless for

either

sale

or

consumption, as

Sullivan

points out, does not constitute sufficient evidence in itself to sustain a conviction. Since in the present case the prosecution proved no more than defendant’s possession of traces of narcotics and did not show that such residue was usable for sale

or