BLACK TAR NOUN (DRUGS)

In the slang of drug users, an exceptionally pure and potent form of heroin from Mexico. Also known more fully as black-tar heroin or abbreviated to tar. Etymology: Formed by compounding: this form of heroin is dark (black) in colour and has the consistency of tar; tar had also been a slang word for opium since the thirties. History and Usage: Black tar first became known under this name to drug enforcement officials in Los Angeles in 1983 (though it may in fact be the same thing as black stuff, slang for brown Mexican heroin since the late sixties); its abuse had become a serious and widespread problem in various parts of the US by 1986. It is made and distributed only from opium-poppy crops in Mexico using a process which makes it at the same time very pure and relatively cheap. Black tar has a large number of other slang names, including those listed in the Economist quotation given below. DEA officials blame the low price of 'black tar' for forcing down other heroin prices, causing the nation's first general increase in overall heroin use in more than five years. Capital Spotlight 17 Apr. 1986, p. 22 Black tar, also known as bugger, candy, dogfood, gumball, Mexican mud, peanut butter and tootsie roll...started in Los Angeles and has since spread to 27 states...What makes black tar heroin unique is that it has a single, foreign source--Mexico--and finds its way into Mexican-American distribution networks, often via illegal immigrants. Economist 7 June 1986, p. 37