Sneef

MEMORANDUM

Defendant first contends that the district court erred by inserting “or some other prohibited drug” after “methamphetamine” in Jury Instruction No. 14 (defining reasonable cause) in response to the jurors’ inquiry why some instructions contained the phrase “or some other prohibited drug” while others did not. Jury Instruction No. 12, which defined the elements of an offense under § 841(d)(2), contained the language “methamphetamine or some other prohibited drug” in its description of the reasonable cause requirement. Defendant did not object to this language before the jury retired to deliberate, and thus we review his challenge for plain error. United States v. Elias, 269 F.3d 1003, 1017-18 (9th Cir. 2001).

Under § 841, the government was not required to prove that Defendant knew or had reasonable cause to believe that the Mini Thins that he sold, which contained listed chemicals, ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, would be used to manufacture methamphetamine. Rather, the government only had to prove that Defendant knew that the Mini Thins would be used to manufacture some controlled substance. See Quintero v. United States, 33 F.3d 1133, 1136 (9th Cir.1994) (“This…