Where i live, Detroit area, there seems to be some (a lot?) going around. I was with some friends, going to our cars from DEMF, and a homeless guy offered us shrooms/black tar opium. We bought a "strip" of opium, he had several "strips" that looked like tootsie rolls.
It is a goey black stuff, looks kinda like hash but not as sticky. It seems to melt in your hand easily. Smells...well exactly like everyone has already posted. We smoked some, my friend felt something on the first hit (he gets really high off just one vicodin, seems sensitive to opiates), but i had to take probably 10 hits of the stuff, then i was feeling groovy..(i seem to have some kind of natural opiate tolerance, they never effect me as much as other people). In a bowl, or hash pipe, it will keep burning when you light it, after you take a hit, it will keep smoking til you put it out. I let my "certain family relative" smoke some, and he had smoked it many times when he was young (he's a hippie type, lots of drugs when he was young), he felt it, said it smells exactly like its supposed to, and he himself recently ran into a person with a "huge bag" FULL of the stuff, that smelled the same. Seems to be somewhat available in this area..
Myself, i'm not impressed with it, i have to smoke a LOT to feel anything, and then its just a subtle, background high.. seems to instantly cure a headache..but its not gonna "fuck you up" i don't think (unless you smoke a pound??). The highest i've gotten off it was when i smoked like 10 huge hits in a row, with several hits spaced out later on, i just simply felt relaxed.. time seemed to go faster.. but one toke of marijuana gets me way higher than this stuff. But, it does smell good
.... just don't go scraping your pods outdoors--chop them down and put in a vase full of water before you go a-slicing.