P.

BACKGROUND

On April 4, 2010, defendant drove his car into a ditch and was taken to a hospital by a paramedic. He denied to the paramedic that he had been using drugs or alcohol. However his “mental status” appeared “altered” and he was “act[ing] very bizarrely,” including talking constantly to himself in the ambulance. At the hospital, while defendant was being prepared for surgery, a plastic bag containing a number of small white spheres was observed protruding from his rectum. This was retrieved and delivered to law enforcement officials. Also retrieved was a scorched glass pipe. The bag was found to contain 24 white objects of similar size and appearance. A criminalist tested two of them, and found that they consisted of .14 and .15 grams, respectively, of rock cocaine. Testifying as an expert, a police officer opined that defendant had possessed the cocaine base for sale because it was a relatively large quantity and the rocks were individually wrapped. On cross-examination, he acknowledged that a heavy user might purchase such a quantity for his own use, and that he might buy it individually wrapped if that was what the dealer had for sale. However a dealer would generally…