I'm going to have to thin them out soon.

In that book "Hydroponic Heroin," it says that when they're about 8" tall to start thinning them out.  You are totally right in your observation though.  If I don't thin them out they will either die or be stunted due to the competition for nutrients.  Although, I am using a Humus fertilizer in the water I feed them (poppies love Humus rich soil).  So that should help them out a bit, but alas I will have to eventually thin them out.  I'm waiting a little bit, probably before they get to 8", just so I can distinguish the best candidates to grow out to adulthood and get rid of the rest.

My opinion easyest / best way to consume . .

Tea . Water extract from the goo or from the liquidised or dried pods and stems . Then cook it down . If one is carefull with the cooking down and has a large wok one can get it hot enough that the fats separate and by swirling the wok a little the fat can be got rid of by sticking to the sides of the wok . Thats how they make the soft opium most people see into real opium = looks and feels like a polished black stone . Personaly i think opium is boreing and would recomend makeing morphine . Cant remember wich but one of the morphines = either sulfate or hydrochlorate is extra nice . The other is not so hot . The way to heroin is a waste of time and the good morphine is a MUCH better hit . One of the very few drugs that gives a real rush and not the crap people talk about when they fix coke or speed = just the effects comeing on fast and ones body being raped from within . A morphine rush is a mental orgasm .

Story time again ----->

1 - I found an old alotmernt that had been closed to extend an airport . It had been empty for years and there people like to grow popys = the whole gardens were full of the fuckers = one rode home on ones bycycle at about warp 9.75 and came back and harvested about 120 liters = two 60 liter ruck sacks full . At home it was cooked out like above to get a piece of opium as big as two fists .

2 - One spent three days with an opium growere in the golden triangle in thailand in his opium field doing the weeding smokeing opium and grass . Plus about 6 weeks in his hut pigging myself with opium and grass . They were poor and i had a load of money so the villagers used to que up outside the hut in the mornings and wait till i woke up = mid day with bags full of grass and opium for me to test . <-------- YUM YUM YUM . After that they threw a village party and the shaman did a ceremony to make me and the opium farmer brothers ........ they called it a mariage = i have a non sexual thai husband  ......... I had to buy a pig big enough so that the whole village could eat and i`m a vegetarian ........ .Fuckin strange that on the one side of the mountain there was an anti opium project from the UNO and a few hundred yards away on the other side of the mountain there were megazillions of poppys . Just the road to the project and the whole area one could see from it was poppy free ........ LOL .