Celebrities are embracing a psychedelic trend by smoking the toxic venom of the Sonoran Desert toad, a practice that has been linked to multiple deaths and is now the subject of clinical trials. The venom, scraped from the toad's glands, contains 5-MeO-DMT, a powerful psychoactive compound known as the "God Molecule."
Celebrity Endorsements and Claims
Heavyweight boxing legend Mike Tyson told The Joe Rogan Experience that the drug transformed his life, saying: "I've never been the same. It's almost like dying and being reborn." Hunter Biden, son of former US president Joe Biden, claimed in his memoir that the intense trip kept him clean from cocaine for a year, and ex-Navy SEAL Robert O'Neill used it as a treatment for PTSD.
Apple Macintosh pioneer Bill Atkinson described his experience as a "psychedelic bungee jump" that offered "training wheels to teach you a divine state of being." The practice promises an explosive "ego death" and total loss of identity.
The Toad's Chemistry and the Shaman's Rise
The venom comes from internal "veritable chemical factories" inside the amphibians, which have bellies the "girth of softballs" and "bulging glands on their necks and limbs." Although dangerous to swallow, the secretions undergo a kind of alchemy when vapourised, becoming a catalyst for breakthrough states of transcendence.
The global explosion of the drug was triggered by Octavio Rettig Hinojosa, a charismatic Mexican doctor who styled himself as a 21st-century shaman. After experimenting with a prodigious array of psychedelics, he claimed 5-MeO-DMT cured his own cocaine habit. He began treating addicts in Mexico, earning the title el doctor sapo — the toad doctor.
Controversy and Deaths
Octavio quickly built a cult following, rising to fame as a "psychedelic superstar" and the "Pied Piper of toad." By 2014, the United Nations Association of Venezuela endorsed him as a "carrier of traditional indigenous medicine." However, reports soon surfaced regarding his erratic behaviour, with footage allegedly showing him slapping terrified clients.
The trend is claimed to have taken a fatal turn amid reports that at least four people died during his ceremonies. Octavio was arrested by Mexican police over one death, though he was never convicted and denies wrongdoing, insisting: "My work has been misunderstood, misinterpreted and misused."
Fallout and Research
Tribal leaders have since denounced him, with one Yaqui activist telling author Kimon de Greef that Octavio "was looking for validation as a shaman, but he's nothing more than an actor - a fake." Despite the fallout, medical researchers are now running clinical trials with the compound for addiction treatment.
