The wholesale purity of heroin, whether processed in the Shan State of Burma, Laos, or Thailand, ranges from 85 to 95 percent pure. Among wholesale heroin trafficking groups in the Golden Triangle, the heroin unit is never adulterated or otherwise altered as it is passed from one group to another.

These wholesale units remain in their original high-purity form, packaged in the original plastic. A typical unit of Southeast Asian heroin is produced in a compressed brick form at numerous heroin refineries in the Shan State of Burma. A 700-gram brick is approximately 6-inches long, 4-inches wide, and 1 inch thick