eight ball

米・フロリダ州の小学校教師が、覚醒剤で逮捕されるという衝撃のニュースです。

囮捜査により、逮捕された模様ですが、さらに驚くべきは、授業中に密売人の取引に応じようとしていたという事実です。


A Florida teacher has been busted for trying to get drugs delivered to her while she taught at an elementary school, according to authorities.

First-grade teacher Valerie Lee Prince, 43, called a dealer to bring her an eight ball of meth at Jacksonville Heights Elementary School — saying she was willing to abandon her class to collect it, according to Clay County Sheriff’s Office.

“You call me, I can just say I have to use the phone real quick — I could step out and come right back in,” she told the dealer, who was an informant who worked with police narcotics officers to record the call.

The call suggested that she planned to “consume some of the narcotics and return to the classroom,” Lt. Domenic Paniccia told a press conference, which shared audio of the teacher’s desperate call.
(Lee Brown. Florida teacher tried to get ‘8 ball’ of meth delivered at school: cops. New York Post. February 9, 2020.)


今日取り上げるのは麻薬に相応しく、俗語の表現です。


an eight ball of meth


という部分の“eight ball”はビリヤードのゲームの一種である「エイトボール」というものですが、麻薬の世界で使われる隠語だそうです。

何故、“eight ball”なのか、については、数字の”eight” (8)が8分の1オンス（約3〜3.5ミリグラム）という麻薬の量を表すということのようです。

通常の取引単位ということでしょうか。