Wiki · Scavenge & Earn

Drugs

Drugs are Original's highest-risk, highest-reward Cash grind. Grow plants in the wasteland, dry them in a recycler, mix finished product at a table, and sell it through your phone before rivals or the infected catch up. Every finished drug also doubles as a powerful personal buff.

The Drug Trade

Drugs turn raw plant harvests into the most valuable consumables on the server — sell them for Cash through your phone, or pop them yourself for a fight or farm run. Three plants, three production chains, and a handful of ingredients are all you need.

The three drug lines are Cannabis (Marijuana Joint), Coca (Cocaine Powder), and Poppy (Heroin Syringe). Each follows the same three-stage pipeline: harvest the plant → dry the raw material in a recycler → mix the final product at a mixing table.

3
Drug lines
3
Stages per drug
Dynamic
Dealer prices
Cash is the goalDrug sales land directly as spendable Cash — bank it at an ATM after each run so it can’t be looted off your corpse.

Want to maximise profits? The Smuggler and Farmhand skill trees both carry perks that raise your harvest rate and the price you sell drugs for. Cross-link: all Cash methods are on Earning Cash; vendor locations are on Outpost Vendors.

Grow & Harvest

Drug plants grow in the open world and at specific field spawns — no planter boxes or base required. Find them, let them mature, and pick them for raw ingredients and fresh seeds to replant.

  1. Locate a plantCannabis (green berries), Coca (white berries), and Poppy plants spawn at field and wilderness locations outside safe zones. They’re also harvestable near recycler monuments like Suburbs and Motel.
  2. Wait for full growthA plant that isn’t ripe yet won’t yield anything worth processing. Wait until it’s at full growth before picking — the yield scales with maturity.
  3. Harvest the raw productPick the plant for its raw ingredient (Raw Cannabis Bud, Coca Leaves, or Poppy Flowers) plus seeds you can replant. The raw items look like ore or basic resources — that’s normal.
  4. Get Poppy Seeds from the Illegal DealerThe fastest way to start a poppy grow is to buy Poppy Seeds from the Illegal Dealer at the outpost black market, then plant them at a suitable field location. Harvested poppy plants drop more seeds so you can keep replanting.
Drug Harvester perkBoth the Farmhand and Smuggler skill trees offer a Drug Harvester perk (+10% harvest rate). Stack it early — it pays for itself quickly on a big harvest run. See Skills.

Drying & Processing

Raw pickings can’t be mixed into a final drug until they’ve been dried first. The recycler is the key station here — and it only runs outside safe zones.

  1. Find a recycler outside the safe zoneMonuments like Suburbs, Motel, Coastal Town, Scraptown, and Hospital all have recyclers. The outpost recycler will not process drug ingredients — use a monument recycler.
  2. Fuel it with DieselRecyclers at monuments run on diesel fuel. Buy a can at the outpost vendors or loot it from the world, then fill the recycler before loading your raw ingredients.
  3. Load and runPlace your raw ingredients in the recycler and start it. Each plant type dries into its corresponding processed ingredient:
    Raw Cannabis Bud → Dried Cannabis Bud
    Coca Leaves → Dried Coca Extract
    Poppy Flowers → Black Tar Opium
  4. Collect processed ingredientsOnce drying is complete, pull the dried ingredients from the recycler output. These are now ready for the mixing table.
The drying step is mandatoryRaw plant pickings put directly into the mixing table won’t work. You must dry them in a recycler first. Skip this step and nothing produces.
Swift Process perkThe Ninja tree’s Swift Process perk (I: −15%, II: −30% processing time) makes recycler runs faster. Great if you’re processing in bulk at a hot monument.

Once you have dried ingredients, buy your cutting agents from the Illegal Dealer: Baking Soda and Syringe Kits are both sold there and are required for mixing.

Recipes & Buffs

Take your dried ingredients and cutting agents to a mixing table to produce the finished drug — each mix takes about 20 seconds. Every finished drug is also a consumable buff you can use yourself — pop one before a monument run, a harvest grind, or a tough fight.

Marijuana Joint+20% wood · 10m
Cocaine Powder+33% ore · 10m
Heroin Syringe+health · 5m
Baking SodaCutting agent · $50
Syringe KitFor injectables · $150
Final Drug Plant Chain Mixing-table recipe Buff (lasts)
Marijuana Joint Raw Cannabis Bud → Dried Cannabis Bud 30× Dried Cannabis Bud +20% wood yield & +10% max health · 10 min
Cocaine Powder Coca Leaves → Dried Coca Extract 30× Dried Coca Extract + 5× Baking Soda +33% ore yield · 10 min (−15 HP on use)
Heroin Syringe Poppy Flowers → Black Tar Opium 60× Black Tar Opium + 5× Baking Soda + 1× Syringe Kit +20 health & +30 health regen · 5 min

Baking Soda and Syringe Kits are both sold at the Illegal Dealer. You need them in stock before you open the mixing table — check your quantities before you start.

Buffs are short-livedMarijuana and Cocaine buffs last 10 minutes; the Heroin Syringe lasts 5 minutes. Use them at the start of a specific task — a big ore node, a monument clear, a harvest run — not while sitting in base. Cocaine costs a little health on use, and every drug burns calories, so keep food on you.

Ingredients at a Glance

The full list of items in the production chain — all three plants, their dried forms, and the two cutting agents:

Item Stage Where to get it
Raw Cannabis BudHarvestCannabis plants (world spawns)
Dried Cannabis BudDryingRecycler output from Raw Cannabis Bud
Coca LeavesHarvestCoca plants (world spawns, white berries)
Dried Coca ExtractDryingRecycler output from Coca Leaves
Poppy FlowersHarvestPoppy plants (grown from seeds bought at Illegal Dealer)
Black Tar OpiumDryingRecycler output from Poppy Flowers
Baking SodaCutting agentIllegal Dealer
Syringe KitCutting agentIllegal Dealer

Selling Product

All three finished drugs are sold for Cash through your phone. Open your phone with /phone, tap the Shop app, and sell your Marijuana Joints, Cocaine Powder, and Heroin Syringes there. (The Illegal Dealer NPC at the outpost only sells you ingredients — it doesn’t buy finished product.)

Prices are dynamicDrug sell prices are dynamic — flood the market with one drug and its price drops. Rotate between your three product lines to keep prices healthy. Check Outpost Vendors for how dynamic prices work.

Smuggler Skill Boosts

Both the Farmhand and Smuggler skill trees offer substantial drug-selling upgrades worth unlocking early:

Tree Perk Cost (skill pts) Effect
Farmhand / SmugglerDrug Harvester15 / 10+10% drug harvest rate
FarmhandDrug Dealer I30Sell drugs for 15% more
FarmhandDrug Dealer II40Sell drugs for 25% more
SmugglerDrug Dealer I5Sell drugs for 15% more
SmugglerDrug Dealer II25Sell drugs for 25% more
NinjaSwift Process5Use the drug processor 15% faster
NinjaSwift Process II20Use the drug processor 30% faster

The Smuggler tree’s Drug Dealer I is the cheapest sell-boost on any tree at just 5 skill points — grab it as soon as you start running drugs. See Skills for the full tree layouts and point costs.

Protecting Your Run

Drug runs pass through monument recyclers and the black market — two of the most contested spots on the map. A few habits that keep a run alive:

  • Bank your Cash immediately after each sale at an ATM. Carried Cash drops on death.
  • Don’t carry more product than you can afford to lose. Move in small batches if the server is active.
  • Watch monument timers. Recyclers near recent zombie kills attract other players looking to loot and ambush processors.
Outpost Vendors
How dynamic drug prices work and where to find the Illegal Dealer and every other vendor.
Skills
Full Farmhand and Smuggler trees — Drug Dealer, Drug Harvester, Swift Process and more.
Earning Cash
Every Cash grind on Original — drugs, gold, heists, scavenge and more.