The National Park Service (NPS) recently issued one of the stranger warnings in its history when they had to urge people not to lick the Sonoran Desert toad.
The NPS posted this message on Facebook last week: “These toads have prominent glands that secrete a potent toxin. It can make you sick if you handle the frog or get the poison in your mouth. As we say with most things you come across in a national park, whether it be a banana slug, an unfamiliar mushroom, or a large toad with glowing eyes in the dead of night, please refrain from licking. Thank you.”
Sonoran toads secrete a potent toxin that can cause sickness or even death when ingested, but those warnings are not being heeded by everyone. Those same toxins, however, can also be used as a psychedelic.
The poisonous secretions are the toad’s defense mechanism and they can kill other animals if they are attacked. Despite the risks associated with the toxin, people know that it contains 5-MeO-DMT, a powerful hallucinogenic.
If harvested correctly and smoked, people can experience euphoria and hallucinations, and for many people, the risks are worth the rewards.
In a post that most people at NPS probably thought they would never make, they wrote, “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.”
National Park Service advises to 'refrain from licking' toxic psychedelic toads https://t.co/DHRYl4smpX
— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 8, 2022
The popularity of the toad because of its psychedelic properties has forced some officials to consider moving it to the “threatened” species list as the population continues to drop. It is now illegal to harvest or possess the toad in California, but in Arizona, you can legally capture up to 10 toads with the proper license.
Once the toad is captured, the liquid must be extracted from the toad’s glands, dried into a “paste-like” substance, and then smoked.
According to a psychedelics researcher at Johns Hopkins, “The experience is going to start within 10 to 30 seconds, and then you’re going to be physically incapacitated for 20 to 30 minutes.”
