These
Toads Have Psychedelic Powers
New research suggests Sonoran Desert toads
went into steep decline after stories of their mind-bending chemical properties
began circulating among drug users.
The Sonoran Desert toad, which secretes the powerful psychedelic
compound 5-MeO-DMT, is facing rapid population decline due
to growing global interest in its mind-altering secretions.
·
Demand
Surge:
Publicized in 2014, the toad’s secretions became popular among underground
healers and “toad churches,” falsely marketed as an ancient Indigenous
practice.
·
Exploitation: The rising demand has led to large-scale
trapping in Mexico, with locals capturing toads for sale.
The animals suffer stress, injury, and over extraction of their secretions.
·
Conservation
Alarm:
Surveys from 2020 to 2024 found declining numbers and smaller toads in Sonora
and Chihuahua, with three populations gone entirely. Toad loss may already be
causing ecological
disruption, like
rising crop-eating insect numbers.
·
Legal
Status: The
species lacks protection in Mexico and is currently classified as “least
concern” globally. U.S. authorities have proposed international trade
restrictions.
·
Synthetic
Alternative Ignored:
Though lab-made
5-MeO-DMT
exists and is chemically identical, users often insist on using “natural” toad
secretions — despite added compounds being toxic, not beneficial.
·
Experts’
Appeal:
Scientists urge the psychedelic community to shift to synthetic sources to avoid pushing the species toward
extinction.
The article underscores
a deep ethical and environmental concern: the misuse of wildlife in the name of
spiritual or therapeutic experiences.
[ABS
News Service/11.07.2025]
It looks much like any other toad. It’s
plump and green with warty brown spots and vibrant golden eyes. When threatened,
though, the Sonoran Desert toad does something extraordinary: It secretes a powerful
psychedelic compound from specialized skin glands.
But that potent chemical defense might now be a liability for survival because of a spike
in interest in psychedelic drugs.
Trapping in Mexico has decimated several
populations of the amphibians and has sent others into steep decline, according
to new findings presented at Psychedelic Science, a psychedelics-themed conference
held in Denver last month.
“In just over a decade, we’ve put this
species at risk of extinction in the name of healing and expansion of consciousness,”
said Anny Ortiz, clinical therapeutics lead at the Usona
Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Madison, Wis., that focuses
on psychedelic drugs for medical use. Combined with habitat loss and other anthropogenic
threats like climate change, “widespread toad abuse” is creating a “triple whammy
for the species,” she said.
Scientists chemically identified the psychedelic
compound 5-MeO-DMT in Sonoran Desert toad secretions in 1967. But until recently,
few people bothered the amphibians or were aware of their psychedelic properties.
That changed in 2014, Dr. Ortiz said, when U.S. media outlets and others began publicizing
the fact that the toad’s dried secretions could be smoked to induce a brief but
intense high.
Many of these accounts also perpetuated
a false narrative that “toad medicine” was an ancient practice of Indigenous tribes
living in the Sonoran Desert, but no evidence supports this claim, said Dr. Ortiz,
who conducted research on the molecule as part of her dissertation at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison.
But as stories about the drug spread, 5-MeO-DMT
became an increasingly popular for-profit offering by self-described shamans, new-age
healers and underground practitioners around the world. “Toad churches,” where people
could go to smoke the compound, also began popping up around the United States,
including in California, Minnesota, Texas, Wisconsin and other states.
In the United States, 5-MeO-DMT is mostly
banned as a Schedule I controlled substance, defined as having no currently accepted
medical use and a high potential for abuse. But some groups secured a legal carve-out
under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by declaring the drug a sacrament, Dr.
Ortiz said.
To supply the growing market, more and
more foreigners began showing up in Mexico, asking for toads, said Dr. Ortiz, who
grew up in the area. “This led to locals seeing it as an economic commodity.”
Many Mexican ranchers now amass toads,
keeping them in buckets and bags to sell to foreigners to take back home. The animals
suffer “appalling” injuries and stress from being kept in captivity and repeatedly
milked for their secretions, Dr. Ortiz said.
The species currently has no protections
in Mexico and is listed as being of “least concern” on the International Union for
Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. Dr. Ortiz feared that the
pressure on the toads was creating a serious new threat, though, so she reached
out to Georgina Santos-Barrera, a professor at the National Autonomous University
of Mexico, to collaborate on a conservation assessment.
Between 2020 and 2024, they conducted annual
nocturnal visits to nine sites in Sonora State and one in Chihuahua. In total, they
found an estimated 400 adult toads and 2,000 juveniles. At least three major populations
seemed to have disappeared, and several others appeared to be in serious decline.
The toads the researchers did find were
also significantly smaller than ones observed in years past. This is concerning,
Dr. Ortiz said, because large toads have the greatest reproductive capacities. “The
right conditions were there,” she said. “But the big specimens were just gone.”
Sonoran Desert toads, which are also known
in the United States as Colorado River toads, play key roles as both predators and
prey. As the population declines, “I’m sure we’ll observe big ecological problems,”
Ms. Santos-Barrera said. Already, she and Dr. Ortiz have heard anecdotal evidence
that crop-eating insects have surged in recent years. “The toads are not there,
so these bugs are not being kept in check,” Dr. Ortiz said.
Once their findings are published, Ms.
Santos and Dr. Ortiz plan to ask the International Union for Conservation of Nature
to adjust the toad’s conservation status. They hope this will also lead to Mexico
issuing national protection for the species.
The United States has already nominated
the Sonoran Desert toad to be subject to international trade regulations under the
Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
It will be voted on in November.
But protections and trade regulations can
only go so far, Dr. Ortiz said. What is really needed, she said, is to persuade
psychedelic users to turn away from toads.
Synthetic 5-MeO-DMT, identical to the natural
version, is available, Dr. Ortiz said. The molecule can also be extracted from certain
plants. Yet many practitioners insist that toad- derived secretions are preferable
because they are natural, Dr. Ortiz said. Some also insist that the secretions contain
other chemicals that contribute to the drug experience.
In fact, the other compounds the toads
produce are cardiotoxins with no mind-altering properties, according to Dr. Ortiz.
“There’s no added benefit for using secretions,” she said.