I have to say, finding real opium took me damn near a year, and it's been well over a year since my last trip (pre-July 4, 2001). When I finally did find it, it was by sheer luck and it just kinda' fell into my lap. Yes, I know what "Black 'O'" outtta' High Times looks/feels/smells like. What I had was very similar, but instead of solid black this was slightly purple; also, instead of resistant like drying clay, it was moe like silly putty you've held in your hands for a while (soft and slightly sticky). The smell was almost pverpowering and made me a little light-headed, like walking into a candle shop. At first, I only smoked it on top of just enough weed to keep it from falling into the hole of my pipe. Eventually, I got industrious and getto rigged a very crude way to smoke it without weed or my glass pipe. (By the way, I do not suggest using glass pipes to smoke O out of. It tends to bake to the glass and is difficult to remove.)
Anyhow, the debate over wether one has real O or not, wasn't the initial question. Rather, it was how to smoke it. I personally like to pack just enough weeds to cover the hold in my pipe and cup a small wad away from the sides of the pipe. But the O high is definately something worth experiencing by itself, kinda' mellow and dreamy.
Damn, sorry about floating off topic so much, I didn't sleep last night.
This is how I ghetto rigged a smoking device:
1. Gather a small plastic SOLO or Dixie cup, a small square of foil, & a nail short enough to fit vertically under the cup and has a flat head.
2. Use the nail to poke a few (~10) small holes in the center of the bottom of the cup and 4-8 around the sides right next to the rim.
3. Poke the nail through your piece of foil, then fold the foil so that it becomes a base for the nail when it stands vertically. (Basically, make the head of the nail bigger, so it won't fall over.)
4. Place a small wad (about 1/4in or less) of your O onto the tip of the nail.
5. Set the nail up on a flat surface, heat resistant is a good idea, and light the O until it catches fire. Don't blow it out too fast, or it will burn out. I usually allow the flame to completely engulf the ball and then blow it out.
6. It should be glowing, like weed does in a bowl once you have it rolling pretty good. Place the SOLO/Dixie cup over the O and wait about 5-10 seconds for the cup to fil with smoke (it will drift out of the holes at the top).
7. Put your mouth over the slits and suck through the cup without lifting it off the table. The smoke tastes overpoweringly flowery. Like lighting an insence stick and breathing in the smoke directly off of it or one of those damn mall people spraying their tester bottles of some ungodly perfume in your face. The smoke will also be a little hot due to the small size of the chamber and hitting it from directly over the glowing ball of O.
Yes, I know this little contraption sucks, but it's fairly difficult to find an opium pipe any more (for me anyhow, I may just not know where to look), which is why I prefer to put my O on top of a little bit of weed. The weed burns to ash very quickly (usually before the O really even takes light), and the ashes work like an organic screen so your O doesn't clog up your pipe too bad.
I'm sorry I wandered around the topic so much, but I hope this helped anyways.
