Hey, bad news! The Second District court—that's New York, Vermont, and Connecticut—has decided that you might be a drug dealer and you don't even know it. Back in 2003, this guy named Ricky Wallace, who lives with his dad in Rochester, poor schmuck, sold two little bags of coke to a some narc. When they came to raid the house, they found 1.5 grams of it and a good deal of pot (well, $600 worth) and an AK-47. They also found a lot of little ziplock baggies. Mmm, Rochester! His rent was $400 a month, by the way.

Li'l Ricky told the court about his stash: "Most of the time I used it by myself ... but if a lady friend comes by we use it together, you know, have some and relax...." Ah, sure. Coke is so relaxing. But uh oh! Said the court: "This testimony is direct evidence that Wallace engaged in the distribution of cocaine base." Um, if you mean "getting ladies high," then yes!

And, oy, those ziplock bags!

When the Rochester police searched Wallace's bedroom, they found (among other things) 1.5 grams of cocaine base parceled out in more than a dozen small ziplock bags; a dinner plate holding numerous new and unused small ziplock bags; a ziplock bag containing numerous new and unused small ziplock bags bearing green dollar signs; a dresser drawer full of empty and unused glassine ziplock bags; and a semi-automatic assault weapon and ammunition for it. Viewed in the light most favorable to the government, this evidence supports the inference that Wallace had the intent to distribute narcotics.

That's nice that we're viewing things "in the light most favorable to the government" to support an "inference" that someone has "intent" to do something. That'll end well for a lot of us.