The Truth About Toad Licking

This was written back in '96 when I lived in Austin.

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Toad Licking

You've probably heard about 'toad licking'. Go out into the woods, find a stream, find a toad, lick it, and ta-da! La-La land. Well, it's not EXACTLY like that... although, finding mushrooms is ALMOST like that, except you don't go into the woods, you go into a pasture, and instead of finding a stream, you find a pile of cow flop... but that's another subject. But anyway, back to the toad thing.

First of all, if you do happen to find the right toad, it wouldn't be a good idea to lick it. The stuff that 'gets you off' is actually venom. The frog secretes the stuff when it gets agitated, such as when a predator is about to gobble it down. As soon as the wolf or gila monster or whatever puts the thing in it's mouth, it spits it out, because the venom tastes like ca-ca. But a human, however... a human dedicated to catching a buzz will go ahead and lick the toad, because he's got a new-fangled cerebral cortex that suppresses his natural instincts for long term survival in favor of his need for instant gratification. So before you go stuffing toads in your mouth, here's a few things you should know.

The toad's venom is concentrated on the surface of it's skin, and that's why licking is dangerous. Smoking it is a different story, however. The toxic ingredient in toad venom is called bufotenine, which is burned off while smoking. After the toxic stuff is gone, what's left is the hallucinogen 5-MeO-DMT. THIS is what sends you to never-never land. The only toad known to contain 5-MeO-DMT in it's venom is Bufo Alvaris, also called the Colorado River Toad. It is found in the Southwestern portions of the U.S., usually along the Colorado River in Southern Arizona, California, and Northern New Mexico. 5-MeO-DMT is classified as an unscheduled substance, which means that it is legal to posess... but B. Alvarus venom also contains bufotenine, which is scheduled, so you are hereby warned of all the cop crap.

B. Alvarus is a very large, squat toad with smooth, leathery, greenish-grey skin with tannish underparts. It has several round warts on the body, and four large parotid glands found where the hind-leg meets the body and also above the ear membranes. They can grow up to 9 inches long, but they usually range between 4 and 9 inches. If you ever do actually have one of these greeblies in your hands, be very careful, because as I stated earlier, it secretes venom when agitated, so wear gloves or something and don't rub your eyes or any other orafice on your body after handling it.

In order to get a smokeable sample, put the toad on a piece of glass (a pyrex baking dish works well) and rub the parotid glands behind it's eyes. This will irritate the toad, and it will secrete a milky fluid. Once there is a goodly amount of it, let it evaporate to a crystal and then scrape it with a razor blade. Put it in a glass pipe, and then SHMOKE IT!


These are the commonly reported (generic) effects

Coming on INSTANLY, you will feel a buzzing head-rush and notice a profound change in light and color perceptions. Acute closed-eye visual hallucinations are commonly reported. Effects last for 5 to 15 minutes, falling off rapidly. WARNING: Venom smokers may experience dizziness and/or heart palpitations. If this occurs, breathe slowly and deeply until the effect fades.

Here is a first hand account by Yours Truly

A friend of mine mailed me a sample of this stuff, and included was a note that read 'have a nice time'. I had no idea what this 5-MeO-DMT stuff was, and expected some kind of a mellow buzz akin to marijuana. So, confidently, I loaded the stuff into a pipe, sat back in my lounge chair, and prepared to chill out. Two seconds after I had inhaled my first (and only) hit, the room exploded. When I say that, I mean... it EXPLODED. Everything came apart like a puzzle, but the pieces were still next to each other, like it had only come apart at the seams but hadn't scattered to the four winds. It was an extreme, instant rush; VERY INTENSE. I gripped the arms of the chair I was sitting in like I was on a roller-coaster, and looked over at my lifelong buddy Clintmonstah, and his face flew into 5 different parts. Actually, it was his face, reproduced 5 times, hovering around the central image of his REAL face. I can remember saying something like "oh shit, this is heavy", and then Clint left the room, knowing that something SERIOUS was going on. What followed after that is very hard to recall, because it seemed like a VERY long time passed... a lot longer than the 5 minutes that actually passed in reality between the time when Clint left the room and when he came back. When Clint came back in the room, I was starting to chill out a little, but during those 5 minutes, I was somewhere else. Where, I do not know. Not only was I someWHERE else, I was someWHEN else too. I could have lived an entire lifetime in those 5 minutes, because it seemed like an eternity had passed. Time lost all meaning. EVERYTHING lost all meaning. I was in limbo for those 5 minutes. But I finally came back... and had a frame of reference again! I exhaled in relief. After that, things calmed down, until the effects were completely gone. The entire episode lasted for about 30 minutes from the time I inhaled to the time I was totally back in reality. And what a journey it was...

If you've ever done acid or mushrooms, then imagine the heaviest trip you've ever had magnified about 100 times. That is what it's like when you inhale about 5 milligrams (the recommended dose) of 5-MeO-DMT. And it's instant, not like the slow, gradual coming on when you take an acid hit or eat a shroom. So if you ever have a chance to smoke some 5-MeO-DMT, now you know what you're in for, unlike poor naive me who was expecting a mellow buzz in my comfortable lounge chair in my air-conditioned apartment. But, it's definitely worth the trip, even if you take it only once.