I always (apparently quite incorrectly) thought of thebaine as being rather weak. Maybe moderating the effects of other alkaloids in opium, and at most being unpleasant to consume on it's own or in high doses.
I've seen photos of the warning signs on the fences of Tasmanian poppy fields saying that the poppies are poison. I always thought that was just to keep hippies from setting up drum circles in the fields, didn't think thebaine was actually that toxic.
Even when travellers snuck in and made brews that ended badly for them, I figured it was just too much morphine.
I stand corrected, thebaine sounds fucking terrible.
Anyway, here is how much that brand's seeds vary:
Although the poor quality image here doesn't highlight the differences too well, the one on the left, common about a year ago (the grayscale batch); the seeds were grey and white and pretty much inactive. Maybe they were actually washed, maybe harshly roasted or from a farm that harvests the seeds at a time, or in a way that they make no contact with latex?
The middle one is what I consider standard. A mix of blue, grey, brown and black seeds. Dry, not sticky. Potency varies greatly. I'd say 10ppm morphine is fairly accurate.. but they can be significantly stronger, or weaker.
The seeds on the right; slightly smaller, solid black, sticky and formed clumps that actually made them a hassle to pour. These were considered potent. Around 15mg morphine per 100g bag, plus some codeine and other alkaloids (according to an analysis a doctor had done on a seed addict's brew when trying to set a benchmark for dosing a new suboxone patient).
This is how two washes of a standard 100g bag looks in solution:
I would have liked to have a direct comparison with the tainted batch, but the checkout ladies took them from me (which is fair enough).