New Record-Breaking Opiate Stash Found in Mexico

[microtel]

"Mexico Army Seizes Record Cache of Opiates

Wednesday, March 14, 2012


"The Mexican army said Wednesday that it has made a record seizure of opiates, about 3.6 metric tons of a dark liquid that contains heroin."

"...The largest previous seizure of opiates was 245 kilograms (540 pounds) of opium paste found in Guerrero in January 2011."


"...The availability of heroin in the United States ... is increasing as a result of increased production in Mexico," the U.S. Justice Department said in its 2011 National Drug Threat Assessment. "The level of illicit poppy cultivation in Mexico was second only to that in Afghanistan in 2009, potentially producing an estimated 50 metric tons of heroin."
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/03/14/international/i175142D35.DTL

 

[23536]

how much tar would that yield?

 

[TheLostBoys]

"...The availability of heroin in the United States ... is increasing as a result of increased production in Mexico," the U.S. Justice Department said in its 2011 National Drug Threat Assessment. "The level of illicit poppy cultivation in Mexico was second only to that in Afghanistan in 2009, potentially producing an estimated 50 metric tons of heroin."
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/03/14/international/i175142D35.DTL

The US government in Afghani are running the show & they are the biggest heroin producers/shippers in the world & isnt it a coincidence how the government are going after pill users.........trying to slow down the pill poppers from using pills & making them move to heroin so they can make more money.

 

[Carl Landrover]

I don't know much about the poppies, but can you pretty much cultivate them in any climate?

I'm guessing it can't be too cold, but of the information I do know there has been mass production in Mexico, Colombia, Afghanistan, and SE Asia. That seems pretty varied.


As for specific topic: dark liquid? Where was this dark liquid found?

I know there's some kind of scientific process to it, but how much synthesis (is that the right word here?) is needed to take opium to heroin? Is tar heroin just a concentrated piece of this opium paste?

The opium paste is unique to Mexico?


I guess I don't understand the basics of why there's tar and powder.

 

[23536]

^yeah no opium paste ≠ heroin. Something else needs to be done to it because there is no heroin in opium.

So then you have to look at how much morphine is in that opium paste, and you can get just about that much heroin out of it.

 

[poledriver]

I don't know much about the poppies, but can you pretty much cultivate them in any climate?

I'm guessing it can't be too cold, but of the information I do know there has been mass production in Mexico, Colombia, Afghanistan, and SE Asia. That seems pretty varied.

I don't know very much about it, but I know Tasmania, in Australia has alot of it growing and it gets fucking cold there. Really cold.

http://www.launc.tased.edu.au/online/sciences/agsci/alkalo/popindus.htm

Tasmania is the world's largest producer of opium alkaloids for the pharmaceutical market. Standards placed on the industry by the Federal, State and US governments are stringent with very high levels of scientific expertise necessary.

The industry is highly efficient. It produces about 50% of the world's concentrated poppy straw (CPS) for morphine and related opiates from merely 10.7% of the production area. (Concentrated Poppy Straw is actually the extracted opiates crystallized out of solution, not the poppy heads and stalks in the photo.)

Other major players are Turkey with 23% of morphine CPS, France with 21% morphine CPS and Spain with 4%. India, by contrast, produces traditional opium from which the US extracts opium alkaloids. India's morphine production is similar to Tasmania. Tasmania has an alkaloid yield of about 9.3 kg/ha compared with France at 7.0 kg/ha, Spain 4.9 kg/ha and Turkey at 1.1 kg/ha.

Most of Tasmania's exports are codeine, thebaine and other opiates. GlaxoKlineSmith exports to Port Fairy poppy straw which is processed to produce norphine, codeine and thebaine.

The industry was introduced into Tasmania by Mr. Steven King in the late 1960's for MacFarlan Smith, a subsidiary of Glaxo, now GlaxoSmithKline. The industry uses the dried poppy straw technique developed by Janos Kabay of Hungary.

 

[poledriver]

I recall getting told along time ago about people who break into the fields in Tasmania to get high and and some die in there from OD'ing

Dangers of poppies

Illegal use of poppies to create poppy tea, tar or gum is life-threatening.
The narcotic content of the poppy plant demands strict domestic and international controls.

Morphine is a naturally occurring substance in the opium poppy. It is a potent narcotic and its main medicinal use is in the management of moderately severe and severe pain.
Morphine has the greatest dependence liability of the narcotic analgesics in common use.

Poppies are now being bred with higher levels of morphine, codeine and thebaine in them and because they all look the same, it is impossible to predict the reaction they will give if taken.
This makes the chances of an overdose much greater. Studies show that thebaine is an extremely toxic substance.
Restricted Access

Trespassing on poppy fields and the possession of poppies and poppy products is illegal and there are substantial penalties for offenders.

Access to poppy fields is restricted to all persons other than those authorised such as licence holders and their employees, company field officers, and contracted employees during sowing and harvesting times.
All other persons requiring access to poppy paddocks to undertake activities such as soil or plant testing or repairs to infrastructure such as power poles or pumps, or those wanting to move through the paddocks to access another paddock, must first obtain a permit from the Poppy Advisory and Control Board and seek permission from the licence holder and the property owner.

http://www.justice.tas.gov.au/poppy/dangers_of_poppies

 

[Carl Landrover]

^yeah no opium paste ≠ heroin. Something else needs to be done to it because there is no heroin in opium.

So then you have to look at how much morphine is in that opium paste, and you can get just about that much heroin out of it.

LOL oh yeah, I knew that already actually. That would be a little too simple to produce heroin if that were the case.


Interesting info poledriver.

I'll have to look on BL, as I know it's been discussed before, but I don't get why there's tar in the west coast and powder in the east (and in Europe) if it's all coming from poppies. Are the poppies in Mexico not somniferum or whatever? Or is there something that's needed to get opium to powder heroin that is not available in Mexico so it instead is made into 'tar'?

 

[jazz hands]

I don't know much about the poppies, but can you pretty much cultivate them in any climate?

I'm guessing it can't be too cold, but of the information I do know there has been mass production in Mexico, Colombia, Afghanistan, and SE Asia. That seems pretty varied.


As for specific topic: dark liquid? Where was this dark liquid found?

I know there's some kind of scientific process to it, but how much synthesis (is that the right word here?) is needed to take opium to heroin? Is tar heroin just a concentrated piece of this opium paste?

The opium paste is unique to Mexico?


I guess I don't understand the basics of why there's tar and powder.

http://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/opium.html

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