Metric Training and Education

摘要

So said one writer about illegal drugs, which, in some cases, went metric before pharmaceutical drugs. We know that already on 1 October 1976, the US liquor industry officially went metric, but why does the illegal-drug trade use micrograms, milligrams, and grams for measurement instead of ounces and teaspoons? By definition, "illegal" drug measurements are not regulated by governments. One reasonable explanation posits that the illegal-drug industry is international in a way that most commerce between one country exporting to another is not. When foreign drug dealers cultivate their opium poppies from the Middle East, or coca leaves are processed from Latin America, they package their products by the kilogram. When they are prepared for illegal export to the US, they are cut into grams and submultiples thereof.