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RECORD DRUGS HAUL AT AIRPORT
The text above was extracted from book Practical English Usage by Michael Swan page 292.
Please, I'd like to know what does RECORD DRUGS mean? Could anyone explain me what's that?
Are drugs, and record drugs different? If so, why?
You've made a slight error in parsing the sentence, which is where the confusion comes in: record modifies haul here, not drugs.
That is, the headline is not referring to a 'haul of record drugs', but to a 'record haul of drugs'.
'Record haul' then means 'haul that set a new record', and in context that can be assumed to be a record for largest size.
Record drugs is an abbreviated version of a record amount of drugs that was shortened to be a headline.
In this case, record is like the record time in a sporting event. It means more drugs were found than had ever been found before.
