\nMy son and I were watching a video about police seizing drugs. One person had heroin on them – “a gram,” they called it.<\/p>\n
\n“What does a gram of heroin look like?” was the obvious question.<\/p>\n
\nI did some research and find that heroin is white crystalline, potentially powdery, with similar density to sucrose, aka table sugar. Therefore, heroin probably appears similar to sucrose. In the case of sucrose, depending on how firmly it’s packed, its density is around 1.59g\/ml: a teaspoon (US: 4.9ml; Metric: 5ml) is about 8g of sucrose (but see last paragraph).<\/em><\/p>\n \nIt seems to me, therefore, that a teaspoon of heroin would be about 8g as well.<\/p>\n \nCurious, I sought the set of measuring spoons, wondering if it includes a 1\/8 tsp – it does! Perhaps yours does also, in which case you can picture what a gram of heroin might amount to. Believe it or not, that amount of heroin might cost around $152 US (as of 2016).\n<\/p>\n From a chemical point of view, these numbers are feasible, but they don’t take into account how tightly packed the sucrose (or heroin) is. With a loose powder, the density could be much less due to air pockets in between; possibly, in real life, the actual volumes of both a gram of sucrose and a gram of heroin might be about twice what I’ve presented here. That’s why dealers use scales, not teaspoons:)<\/p>\n \nSource:\n<\/p>\n creationwiki.org<\/a><\/p>\n pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov<\/a><\/p>\n healthyeating.sfgate.com<\/a><\/p>\n pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov<\/a><\/p>\n asknumbers.com<\/a><\/p>\n traditionaloven.com<\/a><\/p>\n convertunits.com<\/a><\/p>\n addictioncenter.com<\/a><\/p>\nJack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane,<\/a> Campbell River, BC.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Self-tutoring about chemistry: a drug question arises. My son and I were watching a video about police seizing drugs. One person had heroin on them – “a gram,” they called it. “What does a gram of heroin look like?” was …<\/p>\n