Outside In

by Doug Cooper

I use the opportunity to ask another question that has been bugging me about why coke is measured in both grams and ounces. Cinch says, “Not sure. It’s a weird US/metric hybrid system for coke. A kilo is equivalent to about thirty-six ounces, and things go down from there. A half of a kilo is eighteen ounces, and a quarter kilo or ‘quarter bird’ equals nine ounces. I usually stay within the one- to two-ounce range, or twenty-eight to fifty-six grams. Consumer levels begin after you get below the half-ounce mark: a quarter ounce is seven grams; an eighth or ‘eight ball’ is three and a half grams; a sixteenth or ‘teeter’ is anywhere between one and a half and one and three-quarters. From there it’s all metric: a gram, a half-gram, even a quarter-gram.”