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The Right Coast
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Demand for This Toad s Psychedelic Toxin Is Booming. Some Warn That s Bad for the Toad. – The New York Times

By Thomas A. Smith

TUCSON, Ariz. After multiple combat tours as a Navy SEAL, Marcus Capone tried talk therapy. Brain-injury clinics. Prescription drugs. Nothing worked to ease his crippling depression and anxiety.

Then he smoked the secretions of the Sonoran desert toad.

I saw why they call this the God molecule after I got a full central nervous system reset, said Mr. Capone, 45, who now runs a nonprofit with his wife helping hundreds of other Special Operations veterans access toad medicine.

Riding the wave of greater mainstream acceptance of psychedelics for treating mental disorders and addiction, a fast-growing retreat industry is touting the potential of the toad s secretions. People pay anywhere from $250 for a ceremony in the East Texas woods to $8,500 for a more gilded beachfront setting in Tulum, Mexico, to consume the toxin.

via www.nytimes.com

Or for the more adventurous, there’s just walking out in the desert, catching a toad, and licking up that sucker like a popsicle. Basically free, if you don’t count the risk completely frying your brain, which could happen, I’m told. But who among us is not tempted by those cute little amphibians?