She couldn't, that's why she was whoring herself around to get it as payment.

and the fact that not all purchases have inflated at the same rate

I get the feeling the movie did a little research before filming, I don't think they would make the number up
lou paid 26 dollars in 1965, prices might bone up a bit (-:

If you take enough of it and work hard enough the sky is the limit.
Seriously, if you have ever met any proper junkies, they hustle non-stop, really hard. From the outside it looks far easier just to have a boring 9 to 5 and skip all the crime, violence and abuse.
It's no wonder they age really prematurely and need to take heavy duty narcotics to escape from their lifestyles momentarily, it's a really tough life that in most cases ends you far too early.

When I saw that part I thought it seemed like a lot, then I realised that maybe the cop was exaggerating to get the desired effect. Like, maybe she was only using half of that, but the cop wanted to make him think about how many tricks she would have to turn to make that kind of cash.

Heroin is actually cheaper today than it was in the 1990s - - not sure what the difference was from the 70s. But, yeah, that did seem really high (if you look at some of the signs in the grocery stores they go by, you can get 2 cans of soup for 25 cents!).

Win for Vin 2014!

LouReed was payin 26 dollars around that time.

Despite what the other posters have said, it does seem unrealistically high. $80 in 1971 has a purchasing power of $461 in 2013 dollars annualized, it's $168,000 a year in contemporary purchasing power.
But if I recall (I haven't seen the movie in several years), wasn't "the panic" because there was no dope on the street? Maybe it drove the price up to double or more.

Because of the way the body builds a tolerance to heroin, as well as other variables such as quality/quantity per typical $10 unit of purchase (these last two tend to change frequently) the amount of money spent per day is usually as much as the addict can manage to raise. In other words, limits that might seem to make sense don't apply to heroin addiction.

She had an $80 dollar a day habit. That means she was using a LOT of dope. I had a $200 dollar a day habit.we rob, we steal, we reduce ourselves to bottom feeding criminals to put that poison into our bodies. Its very pathetic and sad.

That's why they were robbing and stealing.