It is found that light ions (6Li,10B) distribute neither according to their calculated range nor to their nuclear damage distributions but according to their ionization distributions after implantation into organic polymers. Also, the profile of chemical destruction after low dose light ion implantation (typically 1012–1014ions/cm2) into organic foils obeys the ionization distribution rather than the range or nuclear damage distributions. After annealing, or at higher implanted doses, a slight shift of the implantation or destruction profiles towards the nuclear damage distribution is found. The reason for this implantation behavior may be partly understood in terms of diffusion and subsequent recombination with the created radicals. Li and B distributions in carbon (which may be regarded as the final product of polymer destruction) show a shape which can be described by range profiles with subsequent diffusion and trapping at homogeneously distributed defects. In contrast to light ions, implanted heavy ions distribute in polymers essentially according to their range profiles, due to negligible diffusion after implantation.