delivered the opinion of the court.
Edgаr W. Hunter, Jr., appeals from a judgment order entered against him on November 22, 1971, upоn the verdict of the trial court sitting without a jury finding him guilty under former Code § 54-524.101 (a) of possession оf heroin with intent to distribute and sentencing him to four years’ imprisonment.
Armed with a search warrant, a vice squad raiding party stationed itself at the front and back doors of аn apartment in Newport News. When the officers knocked on the door, they saw through a window several people milling or “scrambling” about inside. Entering forcibly, they saw Hunter, a guest in the apartment, throw a piece of white *570 paper on thе floor near the stove. When they approached him, Hunter backed up, reached into his right jacket pocket, extended his arm to his side and dropped a Coricidin bottle to the floor. The piece of paper contained a syringe, a needle, and a needle cover. Nearby on the floor wаs a bottle cap containing an opium derivative residue and a pieсe of cotton wet with blood. The Coricidin bottle held 71 capsules of white powder later analyzed qualitatively as containing heroin. There was no evidence concerning a quantitative analysis.
Hunter was charged with possession with intent tо distribute. The other eight occupants of the apartment were charged with рossession.
Hunter challenges the constitutionality of Code § 54-524.101 1 and urges that, absent the presumption it provides, the evidence was insufficient to support a finding of intent to distribute.
In
Sharp
v.
Commonwealth,
Sharp
did not hold that quantity cannot be considered as an element of proof of intent to distribute. Intent necessarily must be proved by circumstances. Quantity, when considered in context with other circumstаnces, is a circumstance which may have significant probative value.
See United States
v.
Childs,
The question here is whether the evidence taken as a whole and viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth proves сircumstances sufficient to support beyond a reasonable doubt a finding of рossession with intent to distribute.
We hold that it does.
The circumstance of quantity was only one of the circumstances considered by the trial court.
The heroin was packaged in distributable form.
Hunter, a non-resident of the apartment, was found in exclusive possession of the narcotics and the narcotic paraphernalia, all of which he tried to discard.
*571 The manner of possessiоn indicated ownership; the Coricidin bottle was in Hunter’s jacket pocket.
While possession and ownership may imply intent to use rather than intent to distribute, the record is silent as to whether Hunter was a user while the record speaks loudly that one or more of his companions had recently injected a capsule of heroin taken from the only supply source found in the apartment.
Hunter argues that the Commonwealth’s evidence warrants an hypothesis that he was not the owner-distributor but only the hapless victim who came into momentary possession of the bottle and syringe just before the knock on the door.
The trial court was justified in rejecting thаt hypothesis. The owner of a bottle of 71 capsules of heroin does not yiеld physical control over the full bottle, allow it to pass from hand to hand around the room as he would a pack of cigarettes and permit one of the guests to put the bottle in his pocket.
Considered together, all of the circumstаnces disclosed by the evidence and the reasonable inferences thеy raise fully support the trial court’s finding, and the judgment is affirmed.
Affirmed.
Notes
The 1972 General Assembly repealed 5 54-524.101 and in lieu thereof enacted § 54.524.101:1.