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Before opium is smoked, it is usually 'cooked'. Uncooked opium contains moisture, as well as soil, leaves, twigs, and other impurities which diminish the quality of the final product.

The raw opium collected from the opium poppy pods is placed in an open cooking pot of boiling water where the sticky globs of opium alkaloids quickly dissolve. Soil, twigs, plant scrapings, etc., remain undissolved. The solution is then strained through cheesecloth to remove these impurities. The clear brown liquid that remains is opium in solution, sometimes called 'liquid opium'. This liquid is then re-heated over a low flame until the water is driven off into the air as steam leaving a thick dark brown paste. This paste is called 'prepared', 'cooked', or 'smoking' opium. It is dried in the sun until it has a putty-like consistency. The net weight of the cooked opium is generally only eighty percent that of the original raw opium. Thus, cooked opium is more pure than its original, raw form, and has a higher monetary value.

Cooked opium is suitable for smoking or eating by opium users. Traditionally there is only one group of opium poppy farmers, the Hmong, who prefer not to cook their opium before smoking. Most other ethnic groups, including Chinese opium addicts, prefer smoking cooked opium. Raw or cooked opium contains more than thirty-five different alkaloids, including morphine, which accounts for approximately ten percent of the total raw opium weight.

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