Americans are being warned by a federal agency to stop licking toads to get ‘high’.
The National Park Service (NPS) issued the bizarre warning on its Facebook page last week.
It said the Sonoran desert toad secretes an extremely potent toxin that can make a person sick or ‘poison your mouth’.
Bufotenin, or 5-MeO-DMT, is a potent hallucinogenic found on the skin of the toad, as well as in some mushrooms and plants.
Shamans throughout Mexico and the southwestern US have been harvesting and smoking the substance for decades.
But it has grown in popularity in recent years with legendary boxer Mike Tyson opening up about his experiences on the Joe Rogan podcast this year.
Other notable users include Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, who said the ‘profound experience kept him sober for a year.
The liquid is extracted by milking the toad’s toxic venom glands and then dehydrating it into a crumbly dry paste.
But the NPS is concerned that as the drug becomes increasingly popular, people may turn to physically licking the Sonoran toad.
The animal is found in southern Arizona, as well as parts of California and New Mexico — and western Mexico.
The National Park Service warned park goers in Arizona to avoid Sonoran desert toads, and even to avoid licking them
The Colorado River toad secretes a toxin bufotenin that gives users an extreme, yet short lived, psychedelic high (file photo)
Mike Tyson (left) famously said that he felt like he ‘died’ after using toad venom for the first time. He has since used the drugs dozens of times since. Hunter Biden (right) said the ‘profound experience’ of using the drug helped him get sober
‘As we say with most things you come across in a national park, whether it be a banana slug, unfamiliar mushroom, or a large toad with glowing eyes in the dead of night, please refrain from licking. Thank you. Toot!’ the NPS wrote in a Facebook post.
The Sonoran desert toad – also known as the Colorado River toad – is one of the largest toads native to North America.
It secretes the white milky substance bufotenin as a defense mechanism.
Pharmacologists had known the Sonoran desert toad could make 5-MeO-DMT, but it wasn’t until 1983 that a reclusive artist named Ken Nelson drove to the Sonoran desert, milked a toad, dried the poison on his van’s windshield and smoked it.
The drug – which is about five times more potent than its better-known cousin DMT (dimethyltryptamine) – has only grown in popularity ever since.
It can be inhaled, smoked or snorted and users will often experience a very strong psychedelic high that last around 30 minutes.
It works by blocking serotonin in the brain, sometimes known as the ‘cuddle hormone’. Bufotonin also heavily constricts blood vessels and raises a person’s blood pressure.
Individuals that have taken the toad venom described their trips as being one with the universe and feeling ‘reborn’ – one user said they felt ‘a total fusion with God’ while under the influence.
Users experience bright colors, moving environments, or recursive patterns. According to researchers, the drug often leaves users immobile and unresponsive, and can cause intense emotional reactions, euphoria, convulsions, and vomiting.
‘These toads have prominent parotoid glands that secrete a potent toxin,’ the NPS warns.
‘It can make you sick if you handle the frog or get the poison in your mouth.’
The Oakland Zoo warns the toxin is so potent that it can kill a full grown dog and cause significant harm to humans.
Bufotenine is federally considered to be a Schedule I drug, making it illegal for a person to buy, sell or possess.
Actual reported cases of people licking the toads themselves in Arizona are limited.
There is a growing trend of people using extracted forms of bufotenine to get a high.
Mr Tyson said at a conference last year in Miami that he had used the drug at least 53 times, which his first trip being the strongest.
‘I did it as a dare I was doing heavy drugs like cocaine, so why not? It’s another dimension. Before I did the toad, I was a wreck,’ he told the New York Post.
He described the experience as feeling like he had ‘died’. Mr Tyson said it exposed that he had low self-esteem by stripping away his ego.
He then said on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast earlier this year that his toad venom experience convinced him to get back in the ring in his mid-fifties.
In his 2021 memoir, Hunter Biden wrote that he had used the toad venom as a tool to treat his drug addiction and alcoholism after while he traveled to Mexico in 2014.
‘It was a profound experience. It connected me in a vividly renewed way to everyone in my life, living or dead,’ he explained.
‘Any division between me my Dad, my mommy, Caspy, or Beau vanished, or at least became irrelevant.’
Hamilton Morris, an American journalist who has investigated use of psychedelic drugs throughout his career called the trend worrying.
Mr Morris told The Joe Rogan Experience last year that so many celebrities promoting use of the drug could endanger the animals.
‘For conservation purposes its necessary that people stop milking toads,’ he explained.
‘Its become too popular… if a celebrity said they like something that can have a tangible effect on the environment.’
The species is considered to be ‘endangered’ in California and ‘threatened’ in New Mexico.
