I later found from a web sight on Poppies, real opium is a reddish black.  It’s similar to these white globs, but more of a tar like substance.  What I believe the people I knew were actually buying, was non other than frankincense – that legendary gift mentioned in the Bible.

I discovered the substance was actually frankincense because my mother became an active Christian, and ordered frankincense and myrrh

I believe someone was just buying a bag of Frankincense like this one on Amazon
dividing it up and selling it as Opium. No wonder it smelled so nice.  The people who made the mistake of buying it were really getting burned on the price too.

This is one of the few songs ever written dedicated to Poppy.  There’s Existential Blues, but that song briefly mentions a field of poppies poppies poppies.