Las Vegas Weekly

Lemurs, ecstasy and cash: A handy drug-bust breakdown

Jeffrey Comstock, a Utah man arrested in December 2008 after a cop found approximately 10,000 pills of Ecstasy in his car during a routine traffic stop in Clark County, recently lost his appeal in federal court. That got us thinking: Ten thousand is a big number. So, how do you put it into perspective? Here we break it down, with a little help from a mammal from Madagascar.

7.3 pounds: The weight of a bag containing 10,000 Ecstasy pills. According to eHow, this is also the average weight of a female ruffed lemur.

$2,500: The amount a male ringtail lemur baby would cost you, according to a listing on an exotic pet website in Nevada.

$250,000: Net price of 10,000 pills of Ecstasy at the average street value of $25 each (assuming you wouldn’t give your customers a Costco-style, buy-in-bulk discount.)

Legal: Lemurs? Yes, apparently, but you need a permit to own one. Ecstasy? Definitely not.

6.5 years: Length of prison sentence handed down for the Comstock load. That’s roughly one day for every 4.2 pills.