The Practice of “Toad Licking”/“Toad Smoking” and its Consequences

Homer Simpson experimenting with toads

If you haven’t ever researched the topic of “Toad Licking”, I highly recommend you type the words into the search engine of Google and see what pops up. It has been used as a joke on multiple popular TV shows over the years, including Family Guy and The Simpsons. On the episode of Family Guy “Let’s Go to the Hop”, licking psychoactive toads became the newest drug craze at Meg and Chris Griffin’s high school. Although we laugh whenever it is mentioned in these shows, it is a sad fact that many individuals have experimented with licking poisonous toads in an attempt to experience these supposed hallucinogenic effects.

Colorado River toad, Bufo alvarius

During the 1980s, the Australian government actually was forced to outlaw the consumption of cane toad excretions. In the US, Bufo alvarius (Colorado River toad) has been rumored to produce these same effects. Multiple drug busts confiscating toad toxins were performed in the 60s. One of the active ingredients in toad excretions, bufotenine, is considered a controlled substance. It is a Schedule I drug according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement and Commonwealth of Australia as well as a Class A drug over in the UK. Bufotenine/Bufotenin contains the chemical 5-MeO-DMT, which is in the dimethylethanamine family and a natural-occurring hallucinogen similar to synthetically-made LSD. When consumed, a person will initially experience pupil dilation, increased heart rate, and see vibrating light along with fast-moving images. Bufotenine also constricts the blood vessels, which can lead to a rise in blood pressure. It blocks serotonin, an important neurotransmitter used for normal brain functioning. 

This leads to many questions going through my brain at once. Why on earth would someone even attempt ingesting a known toxic substance in order to get high, if an overdose could result in death? How would you even obtain the poison to begin with? While the effects are undoubtedly “far out”, ingesting this substance is an EXTREMELY risky venture, since they have no idea exactly what concentration of toxin they are consuming! An overdose can result in cardiac arrest and potentially death. Although it’s impossible to understand some people’s train of thought, it can be established how they extract the toxin in the first place. It actually isn’t harmful to the toad at all (one good thing about this). A person simply applies pressure to the toad’s parotid glands behind the eardrums, causing the milky poison to be excreted, which can either be directly licked off or dried and smoked in some cases.

Credit for discovering the hallucinogenic effects of Colorado River toad excretions can’t go to the drug experimenters of the 60s. South American Indian tribes also used this toxin in their religious ceremonies around 1150 B.C. Also, Matses/Mayoruna Indians of Brazil and Peru spread the bodily fluids of the Phyllomedusa bicolor (Giant Leaf Frog) over open wounds of their tribesmen, believing it gave them strength and increased hunting ability. While this did not aid in either of those goals, it probably didn’t help their chances of contracting gangrene or sepsis. On that note, I’d like to conclude that it is never a good idea to lick your toad, despite how fun the cartoons tell you it is.

Citations:

·         http://science.howstuffworks.com/zoology/reptiles-amphibians/hallucinogenic-frog1.htm

·         http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/summary/summary.cgi?cid=10257#x395