Black tar heroin

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Black tar heroin

Black tar heroin is a variety of heroin produced in Mexico. It is the prevalent form of heroin in the western United States. In the eastern United States, South American-produced "white" (actually beige to off-white) powder heroin is most common. Black tar heroin is also occasionally found in western Canada, though Southeast Asian heroin is the most predominant form there. Almost all of the heroin produced in Mexico is destined for the western United States.

"Black tar heroin" is the typical street term for the drug,See the CDC's [Wound Botulism Among Black Tar Heroin Users] from 2003, for example. but it has many other street (colloquial) names, such as:

Pigment
Black Heroin, Black, or Negro (the Spanish word for black).
Chiva - a Spanish word for a young goat.

Mexican drug syndicates began producing heroin in the early 1990s. Lacking the experience in chemistry that South American (especially Colombian) syndicates had gained through years of cocaine production, Mexican organizations used less-refined morphine as their source material for heroin. The opium from which heroin is ultimately produced is a brown-to-black, gummy latex containing about 10% morphine. Pure morphine and heroin are both fine white powders. In order to produce heroin, morphine is extracted from raw opium and reacted with acetic anhydride (also used in the production of aspirin). The purity of the final product, and therefore its color and texture, depend on the purity of the source material. The morphine that Mexican producers use retains some of the gum and other opium residue that other producers typically remove. The result is black tar heroin, which resembles opium in its physical appearance. Early black tar heroin was notable for its low purity (usually under 30%, at a time when South American heroin from the east coast often tested at over 90%), but purity levels have increased dramatically as the producers have gained experience. Accordingly, the price per kilogram of black tar heroin has increased from one-tenth that of South American powder heroin in the mid-1990s to between one-half and three-quarters in 2003.

The effects of black tar heroin are identical to those of powder heroin. Because of the consistency of black tar heroin, it is usually injected or smoked. It can also be ground into powder (see below) or dissolved in water and snorted. Users who intravenously inject black tar heroin are at higher risk of venous sclerosis (a condition where the veins narrow and harden, making injection there nearly impossible) than users of powder heroin. Ironically, researchers at UC-San Francisco have found that the rapidity with which black tar heroin destroys veins compared to powder heroin (forcing users to inject subcutaneously), along with its gummier consistency (requiring that needles be thoroughly rinsed between use), may put users at lower risk of HIV infection.[Black Tar Heroin May Save Users from HIV: Report]

Mexican brown powder heroin is typically produced from black tar heroin by pulverizing it with lactose or another suitable cutting agent.

References

[National Drug Threat Assessment 2005], National Drug Intelligence Center. Accessed 15 December 2005
[Heroin], Interpol Drugs Sub-Directorate. Accessed 15 December 2005

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