Court Opinion

ID: 9711451
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:32:12.1465+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:05.157844
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE APPLETON, specially concurring: I concur with the decision of the majority but write separately to address one point addressed by its opinion. This issue has been previously addressed by this court in decisions issued pursuant to Rule 23 (166 Ill. 2d R. 23) and not previously published. In prosecutions charging the possession of precursor substances with the intent to produce methamphetamine, the question will always arise of how much methamphetamine could be produced from the recovered quantity of pseudoephedrine. From the record in this case, as well as numerous others before this court, it is abundantly clear that a formula exists for the conversion of precursor material into a quantity of methamphetamine. That formula is commonly accepted by the scientific community and, in essence, is operable by the application of mathematics. The only variables in the formula are the skill of the “cookers,” the equipment used by them, and the location of the production. It is these variables that produce the plethora of different conversion ratios of raw material to product — ranging from .92 to .40 — seen by this court as well as other state and federal courts throughout the country. The gravamen of the offense, possession with the intent to manufacture a certain amount, should not depend on a variable either outside the control of the defendant (as here, where defendant was only a procurer of precursors for another) or within the control of the ultimate manufacturer. The amount of end product should be charged and proved by the State based on a conversion formula based on what is possible to be produced, i.e., the maximum, regardless of extraneous skill or environmental factors. The conversion formula is what it is — the maximum amount that can be produced without regard of the argued ineptitude of the person who could be charged with transforming a healthful product into poison. See People v. Redenbaugh, No. 4—03—0667 (June 23, 2005) (unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23). Based upon this analysis, the oft-debated Iowa study of the potential yield of methamphetamine from the precursor drug pseudo-ephedrine is of no usefulness in the State of Illinois. To hold otherwise would involve the courts of this state in a qualitative analysis of the experimental and environmental variables involved in the production of methamphetamine, an exercise that is both unnecessary and unwise.