My friend was recently in Cali for a few months, she said Cali tar sucks..as far as I'm concerned the stuff here is good. But it ain't sin city for nothin' Black tar varies from region to region,city to city even. You have to get close to the source..both in dealings and geography.
Absolutely. Now if you pulled ten random bags of tar and ten random bags of powder from coast to coast, i would imagine that the mean/median purity of the powder would be higher than that of the tar. BUT that is not to say that powerful, powerful tar isn't around, even easier to locate high quality tar than high quality powder in some areas. it all depends on who you know.
I had to learn this the hard way. I had thought that tar was, by definition, inferior to powder; i thought that tar maxed out at 50-60% purity at the absolute top of the food chain. so when this girl i was semi-dating/partying with tried to warn me that the tar she had brought over was incredibly potent, i disregarded her warning because i "knew" that there was no way that a .1 balloon of that tar was as potent as a .1 bag of the pretty damn good (not best stuff ever level, but no complaints at all) east coast powder that I had been doing. Arrogantly (idiotically) I increased the volume of my dose by a third over what i was doing in powder to get a nice rush and a solid high (i did 0.4 instead of 0.33)
BIG mistake. I don't really come to until about a week later. Apparently i had been wondering helplessly from room to room trying to figure out what was going on. i knew something horrific had taken place but couldn't remember what it was. so i would ask my roommate/best friend and he would patiently explain that i had OD'd and nearly died, that only his quick, astute assessment of the situation (lady friend leaving at one in the morning without me following her out to say goodbye; she was not upset/angry, but pretty freaked out and with me staying in my room for ten minutes or so past her departure coupled with my history of opiate dabbling/abuse/addiction/repeat, he knew he should check on me--then found me breathing very shallowly, lips were turning blue, blueish tint to my skin. he got me into a cold shower and that shocked me back to consciousness than he spent the rest of the night walking me around the house, holding me up while i puked everything that wasn't nailed down in my entire digestive system up-- and then some. to say that we love each other as much as heterosexually possible and that i am forever grateful for his saving my life and i will always feel shame and guilt over having put him through that... and all he ever really said about it was 'the important thing is that you are alive. i love you. you would do the same for me if i was ever to get into needle play. just please don't do this again' but i'm ranging pretty far afield, sorry)
my point is, tar can be extremely potent, and give really good powder a run for its money on a point by point basis. be careful. don't assume that all tar is less than 50% pure. it could cost you your life (i still have a hard time making new memories to this day when once if i heard something once, i remembered it effortlessly. small price to pay for my life, but a hell of a loss for someone who prided himself on his 'intelligence')
be safe, sorry for the length, its something i've been pondering a lot these past couple of days. definitely tought me the lesson to always do a small taste of any new source/stamp/whatever because you can never tell until (some portion) is ingested.