Poppies are sold at $37/kg dry weight with up to 3% of the mass being desired narcotics. Legally, they produce about 3x more value per acre for a farmer compared to the best corn crop in iowa; however they can be grown on soil and conditions far below any threshold for suitability compared to any other crop.
So an acre of poppies is <<$500M and the conclusion is that the article writer was in the midst of the burning poppy field while writing the story.
I bet you’re right. 2,000 lbs of poppies gets mistranslated as 2,000 kg of heroin. Someone sees the street value of a heroin dose (0.1 g) can be up to $20, and rounds up to $25.
2,000 kg = 20 million doses = $500M. Simple math (if you’re an idiot).
I once asked our local newspapers Reader Rep to explain (or ask the writers to explain) how the 3 stories in that days paper about confiscated drugs had such wildly differing amounts for the ‘street value’ of these drugs. I calculated the price per pound, and one article had a price 3 times the other article, and the third article was 5.5 times the first article.
The answer I eventually got was that the journalists just reprinted whatever price the arresting authority quoted to them. And in this specific case, one arrest was by city police, another by a state drug task force, and the 3rd by federal authorities. (And the city police told the reporter that 'those state & feds get ranked on how much they seize, and it affects their budget. So they make up big numbers. City Police are always going to be here, and drug seizures aren’t a major policing issue to the City Council.)
