> Could that not have been used to make pain pills? To my knowledge, the industry has moved away from poppies that produce morphine (they still technically gro

> Could that not have been used to make pain pills? To my knowledge, the industry has moved away from poppies that produce morphine (they still technically grow p. somniferum, but a special cultivar with low morphine content to discourage theft). Instead they extract the opioid compound thebaine, which is then converted to powerful name-brand pain meds. This is why they're called "semi-synthetic opioids", because they require thebaine as the primary ingredient. So yes, those could have been used to produce pain meds the "old-school" way but I doubt they'd be of any use to western pharmaceutical companies.