♪♪
[ Frogs croaking ]
♪♪
Morris: The journey from tadpole to toad
is a complex metamorphosis
resulting in the synthesis of a chemical
that allows humans to undergo a metamorphosis
of their own.
[ Man wheezing, screaming ]
♪♪
Morris: I've been fascinated by psychoactive drugs
my whole life.
I love to study their chemistry and impact on society,
and my work has allowed me to investigate
extraordinary substances around the world.
Yet there are still mysteries that remain.
♪♪
There are hundreds of toad species,
but only one is known to biosynthesize 5-MeO-DMT,
the most potent, naturally-occurring
serotonergic psychedelic.
This is the story of Bufo alvarius.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
Sandoval: Mother, Father, God, great infinite spirit,
trans-dimensional beings of light.
I'm asking at this time for your presence, Divine Spirit.
Fill this space,
filling my mind, my body, and my soul,
allowing me to be a clear, open channel
of your infinite love and light
and wisdom and healing energies,
for the healing of myself and others,
and the healing of Mother Earth.
Peace on Earth begins today,
and it begins within me.
I will release, relax,
and allow divine love to enter me.
Aho.
♪♪
Oh, I love you.
Sandoval: Just relax.
Release.
Relax, relax.
Oh!
Oh, fuck!
I love you guys!
Oh,
fuck!
[ Yelping ]
[ Shrieks ]
♪♪
[ Groaning ]
♪♪
Morris: The Sonoran desert,
the most bio-diverse dessert on the planet,
spanning vast swaths of the southwestern United States
and northwestern Mexico.
♪♪
Temperatures here can soar upwards
of 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
Few amphibians can survive such arid conditions,
but Bufo alvarius,
also known as the Sonoran Desert Toad,
has found a way to thrive,
spending up to nine months of the year
estivating in subterranean dens.
Its emergence during the summer monsoon
has given it a prominent place
in the mythology of the Yaqui people.
♪♪
[ Singing in native language ]
♪♪
Morris: Meso-American cultures frequently depicted toads
in their stone carvings and ceramics,
leading some scholars to speculate
about ancient use of toad venom.
Yet these depictions are taxonomically ambiguous
and fail to provide evidence
that toads were once used as a psychedelic.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
Tucson herpetologist Robert Villa has spent his life
studying the flora and fauna of the Sonoran desert.
Villa: Watch your step here.
[ High-pitched croaking ]
Morris: What is this sound?
You are hearing Couch's spadefoot toads,
and they are advertising for mating.
Those are males.
[ High-pitched croaking continues ]
Unfortunately, I don't hear the Sonoran desert toad in there.
Bufo alvarius can be really quiet and not call.
When you consider that an amphibian is next
to a fish in its water requirements,
it's pretty remarkable that amphibians
even exist in these desert regions.
But what they do to survive is that they spend
up to nine months or more underground, dormant.
Once the rain starts hitting the ground,
it's an auditory signal for the toads
to come up and start mating.
Did you find one?
I got some spadefoots for you.
This is amphibian sex.
Villa: They have a window of less than three months
to eat and procreate before they have to go back under,
before the rain water dries out again.
But --
Morris: Oh, wow. What is that?
Guess who that is?
♪♪
[ Frog croaking ]
[ Chuckles ]
It came to us.
Oh, what a cutie pie.
Morris: Like many amphibians,
Bufo alvarius possesses a powerful defense
against predators.
When bitten, the toad secretes a milky-white fluid
from its parotoid glands
that can poison its attacker, making them extremely ill
and sometimes causing cardiac arrest.
♪♪
While the psychedelic bufotenine has been detected
in dozens of toad species,
Bufo alvarius is the only amphibian known
to biosynthesize its o-methyl homologue, 5-MeO-DMT.
The toad's neck and limbs carry numerous protuberant glands
marked by pores through which venom is excreted
from subcutaneous lobules
that contain the enzyme responsible
for biosynthetic conversion of bufotenine
to 5-MeO-DMT,
in addition to the production of other tryptamines
and cardiotoxic steroids.
♪♪
When the toads' secretions are dried and smoked,
it produces a psychedelic effect so profound
that it can cause complete dissociation
from consensus reality.
Despite its extraordinary potency,
the drug is generally benign when used with supervision,
but its tendency to cause dissociation
and mixture with MEO inhibitors
has resulted in at least three deaths
from drowning or aspiration of vomit.
♪♪
Morris: Why might someone even begin using this in the first place?
Where would someone get that idea?
Because there's a lot of venomous or poisonous animals.
That's a great question.
And ever since I started thinking about it,
I really -- I don't know.
Because even if you've read that it contains 5-MeO-DMT,
and you know that that's a psychedelic drug,
to take the next step and milk this secretion
and put it in a pipe and smoke it is a very brave thing to do.
Sure is.
I think that's what they call a psychonaut.
It's pretty, pretty wild.
♪♪
I decided to embark on a quest to answer
what may be the most important question
in ethnoherpetological history.
Who was the first person to smoke toad venom?
The first scholarly writing on the subject
is a 1992 article by Andrew Weil and Wade Davis,
which offers a speculative ancient history
of hallucinogenic toad consumption.
Yet their article is unable to provide hard evidence
for toad smoking before the the publication
of a mysterious pamphlet called, "Bufo alvarius,
the Psychedelic Toad of the Sonoran Desert."
Written in 1983, the pamphlet
is a work of extraordinary erudition
that seemingly emerged out of nowhere.
It describes everything from the venom's chemical composition
to its qualitative effects when smoked,
in addition to techniques for locating and milking the toad.
Without a history of human use,
the identity of the author becomes even more intriguing.
Who could have written this guide,
and who would have taken the incredible risk
of smoking the venom
with nothing but evidence of its toxicity?
Who is Albert Most?
I contact Andrew Weil, hoping he may have some insight
into the identity of the mysterious Mr. Most.
But Weil has since severed his ties with the toad community
and refers me to an old friend named Steven Shouse.
Shouse: I tried the toads. Very fast-acting.
It was very strong, very psychedelic.
It was just immediate [imitates explosion]
Do you know Albert Most or Al Most?
He wrote this guide to milking the toad
and is seemingly the first person
to have smoked toad venom.
No. I have never met him.
The best psychedelics experiences I've had
have always led to me to just love everything.
I found that once you learn to love life,
that's it.
There's no ultimate high past that, that I have found.
Just being here is so special, you know?
♪♪
Do you mind if we embrace?
Sure.
♪♪
Morris: The original pamphlet is so rare
that there are only a handful of copies known to exist.
But the text was digitized
and made freely available in the '90s.
I start looking for anything else
Albert Most may have created and find writings
on the pineal and Peganum harmala,
as well as t-shirts advertising a religion
called the Church of the Toad of Light.
I find an advertisement for these t-shirts
had been digitized by a Californian massage therapist
who wishes to remain anonymous.
The anonymous masseur is reluctant to speak with me
and demands I pay $100 for 10 minutes of his time.
[ Cash register dings ]
Man: So, here we are.
Now, that pamphlet
actually was not authored by me,
but the guy that actually wrote that,
I don't know what his real name is.
That's just going to be a perpetual mystery.
Morris: The masseur reveals he's not the real Albert Most,
a staggering reversal.
He had assumed the identify of Albert Most
without ever having met the man himself.
Man: There's a lot of misinformation out there, as well.
People still to this day think that you lick the toad.
Was anything else burning? Time's up here.
Morris: Indeed, he knew little more than me
about the identify of this mysterious toad venom pioneer,
with the exception of one vital clue.
Man: It came up that Albert Most
was one of Rick Strassman's study participants,
'cause I was going to participate in that study,
but I didn't.
Morris: Bound by physician-patient confidentiality,
I knew Rick Strassman couldn't discuss the matter,
so I had to work backwards
from the names of publicly-known participants
with an eye on Alfred Savinelli,
an Italian/ Native American businessman
and DMT enthusiast.
Could Al Savinelli be Albert Most?
I began searching for evidence and found Savinelli shared
Albert Most's affection for Peganum harmala
and had worked as an advisor
on a Henry Rollins-hosted television documentary
about toads... Rollins: Named Alfred.
Morris: ...the smoking gun.
Emboldened by my evidence,
I decided to ask Savinelli himself.
Hi. Is this Alfred Savinelli?
Savinelli: Hi, Hamilton. How you doing?
Hi.
Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me.
I have tried to keep you at arms' length
for a couple years now.
I'm calling you because I've come to believe
you are Albert Most,
the first human being to smoke toad venom.
Mm-hmm.
♪♪
[ Lighter clicking ]
I'll be more forthcoming in a second here.
♪♪
♪♪
My whole life has been a journey into nature.
I think there's actually great wisdom
in all of the animals on the planet.
And I was tutored by a number of Native people
about how to handle all of --
many of those kind of things.
So could you tell me how you got to the point
that you were investigating toad venom?
Sure. Um...
♪♪
If you've ever watched a cat toy with a mouse,
the cat will eat the brain of the mouse first,
'cause it's juiced up
with all those endorphins and chemicals.
In the archaic and Native traditions,
hunters had wisdom that if you take a bear,
chase it, club it,
stab it, and then take it into a cave,
their brains were consumed
for a psychoactive effect.
[ Thunder rumbling ]
I was pretty well-convinced that a lot of these animal ways
to the spirit world had disappeared.
Toads and frogs fascinated me
to the end of time.
They have a long history in mythology in the Americas.
Bufo alvarius was as esoteric as I could imagine,
and I really like what nobody else is doing.
So I'm the kind of person that has been unafraid
of experimenting with natural things,
so I very early on started experimenting
to see if the venoms tasted good or tasted bad
or just how they tasted.
All toads contain bufotenine.
Bufotenine was a fascination to start with,
and so any toad [laughs] along the river I'd find,
I would express the venom onto cigarettes and smoking it.
At the time when you first smoked it,
had you read the chemical analysis
that indicated the presence of 5-MeO-DMT in the venom?
I didn't know that, no.
So you didn't know what was in the venom?
[ Laughs ] Um, no.
But my initial experience made me realize
that there was enough intrigue with it
that I pursued it.
And had what I imagine
was some sort of transcendent experience?
Numbers of them. Numbers of them.
This was like mother's milk. This is what I was looking for,
and it was the first thing that really allowed me
to experience ego death.
And I was somewhat pleased that I thought I had
broken through to the other side.
I was now accessing this all the time.
What inspired you to publish what you had found?
Faith that this is a healing thing.
I realized that when your mind is open
at that level, your spirit's open,
if you put in a positive, reinforcing message,
the mind and body will follow suit.
It makes an atheist believe in God.
♪♪
I have seen and I'm convinced that 5-MeO
is 15 years of psychotherapy in 15 minutes,
if we could only take the time to explore it
in greater depth.
I also really like the flavor of the toad venom,
more so than anything.
What is the flavor?
Somewhere between stale beer and a buffalo fart.
[ Laughs ]
♪♪
Morris: 5-MeO-DMT was placed in Schedule I in 2011,
interfering with scientific and medical research
on the substance.
The practice of smoking toad venom moved to Mexico,
where it's used in clinics as a treatment for addiction
and by a growing number of shamanic healers.
♪♪
♪♪
[ Chanting in foreign language ]
Morris: Could you tell me about the dangers
of smoking this venom?
Oh, wow.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
[ Thunder crashing ]
[ Rain pattering ]
Morris: The first time I ever smoked 5-MeO-DMT,
it was not from a toad's body.
It was synthetic material that I ordered from China
before 5-MeO-DMT was a controlled substance
in the United States.
I was in a controlled environment,
alone in the dark,
and the experience was utterly terrifying.
I felt as if I had inhaled a poison that was killing me.
The fact that it's been associated with human deaths
and induces a near-death experience
is a frightening combination.
[ Thunder crashes ]
[ Birds singing ]
♪♪
♪♪
Oh, the toads! Look! Look! Look!
Coming towards right there in front.
♪♪
[ Laughs, smooches ]
Meet the Bufo. Don't be scared.
They might pee.
Wow.
So, we're just going to put them here.
♪♪
No. This is just so sad.
Morris: How terrible.
No. This is not meant to happen.
This is so sad, man.
I want to put, like, signs in all this road.
Don't run them over, no.
But this is so sad.
This is not meant to happen.
Ah, man. See the medicine, how it squirts?
I heard about the Sonoran desert toad
when I was 18 years old.
Got a chance to go to Oaxaca, and out of the blue,
two guys from the Bay Area introduced themselves,
and they said that they had some toad for me to try.
Having my first puff of the Sonoran desert toad,
and wow.
It was just amazing.
Basically, I died, and I came back,
and that was just the strongest experience
in which I saw God.
I saw eternity.
You come to the ultimate realization
in which everything is alive.
That's what I find most fascinating about this medicine,
the capacity to just put me into that space
with...everything.
And I was like, "Wow. This is the toad?"
And the guys were like, "Yep. That's the toad."
And I was like, "I have to meet them.
I really have to meet them."
So I just grabbed my bags,
and I headed here to the Sonora desert,
and literally,
I saw thousands of toads.
And you were trained as a gynecologist.
-I am an OB-GYN, yes. -Do you still practice?
It's been now two years I stopped practicing.
I just realized there's a whole bunch of gynecologists,
and there are just a few people
who are really facilitating this experience.
And in a way, like, after witnessing the birth of humanity
as a gynecologist, it's pretty much the same line of work.
I am witnessing the rebirth of humanity.
It's as if you're seeing a newborn baby.
You know, they're like [imitates crying]
And then you have to shush them, no, like,
"It's okay." Like, "Shh. it's all good."
And now it's been 13 years and almost 4,000 people.
♪♪
Sandoval: In all of the scouting that I do
in the Sonoran desert every year,
I can see clearly the drop in numbers.
You know, and even talking to the locals,
they can clearly tell you 10 years ago,
you could see toads everywhere,
and now it's just lowered to a couple of dozens.
And what if the toads become a non-viable source for medicine?
What if they continue to decline?
Would you consider using synthetic 5-MeO-DMT?
♪♪
Guess I'll have to see.
But at the end, I think we should definitely
leave the toads alone.
If synthetic 5-MeO-DMT works,
then why are we affecting such a beautiful
and sensible ecosystem or habitat
as the Sonoran desert?
I actually do kiss them. [ Smooches ]
They're so beautiful and amazing.
♪♪
♪♪
Morris: It's 8:00 p.m. I am in Sonora
looking for Bufo alvarius.
It hibernates for nine months of the year,
then emerges to breed.
And it's during this brief period that it can be found
and milked by enterprising toad hunters.
♪♪
Morris: Over the years, how many grams of venom
have you harvested and sold?
♪♪
That's at least 5,000 doses.
So you're probably one of the biggest producers
of this in the world.
♪♪
And you love the toads.
♪♪
What do you love about them?
♪♪
Is it becoming more popular?
♪♪
Which way? I don't know.
[ Laughing ]
Do you know?
[ Laughs ]
Morris: We're lost
with some encouraging skeletal remains of a cow.
[ Man hooting ]
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
Look. There's three behind the tree.
♪♪
The toads are momentarily paralyzed when the light
is shined directly in their eyes,
and that's the reason that their greatest enemy
in this region is the automobile.
Car headlights blind the toad.
They freeze in the road,
and then they're run over by a car tire.
On every road, you can find crushed Bufo alvarius,
and it's very tragic.
♪♪
[ Toads croaking ]
So, what would you do if the toad went extinct?
♪♪
Why do you think a toad would produce this venom?
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
The venom is being expressed from the parotoid glands.
You can see that it squirts in almost every direction,
and that it's very difficult to aim.
There's no question that it has an ejaculatory character.
♪♪
[ Scraping ]
So, where does all this venom go?
Do you think it's safe to smoke this venom?
The freak-out people?
What sort of person freaks out?
♪♪
♪♪
And this is a hard psychedelic?
♪♪
[ Animal howls ]
Sandoval: Mother, Father, God,
great infinite spirit,
angels, light workers, spirt guides,
trans-dimensional beings of light,
knowing we are all one,
knowing that all we need to do is ask and we shall receive,
I will release, relax,
and allow divine love to enter me.
Aho.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
[ Chanting in foreign language ]
[ Singing in foreign language ]
[ Both chuckle ]
I've got people who act like complete Buddha.
They just stay emotionless.
You know, they completely surrender.
Some people dance with it.
Some people have a sexual experience,
like a tantric experience.
I've got people who I call them the screamers.
You know, they just go through a really living exorcisms.
It can be very profound.
Hold it. 10. Hold it. 9.
Eight. Seven. Hold it.
Five. Four.
Three.
Oh, I love you.
Sandoval: Just relax.
Release.
-Allow. -I love you guys.
Oh, my.
Just feel the love.
Ohh.
♪♪
Relax, relax.
-Relax. Just breathe. -[ Gasping ]
Oh, fuck!
I love you guys!
Oh,
fuck!
[ Yelping ]
[ Shrieking ]
♪♪
[ Gasps, groans ]
Sandoval: Relax.
Aah! Aah!
[ Yelping ]
♪♪
-In control. -In control.
[ Growling ]
Put him on the side.
[ Gurgling ]
Just on the side.
Always in control.
-[ Groaning ] -Just breathe.
Always, always.
Yes.
Yeah.
Way to go, bro.
[ Growls, spits ]
Sandoval: Just relax.
You're doing beautiful, bro.
Sandoval: There was a huge healing, yeah, that took place, for sure.
The medicine takes care of people.
He's in good hands.
[ Retching ]
Is the vomiting pretty common?
Less than 20% of people vomit.
No everyone pukes. Not everyone rolls.
But hence the importance, no, of being fully there
and taking care of the participant, no?
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
Bro, thank you.
[ Both laugh ]
♪♪
That was amazing to watch.
It's very powerful. It can be very profound.
It's a little bit frightening.
Being freed from your physical bound form
can be pretty scary.
How are you feeling?
[ Sighs ]
Still kind of putting it all back,
putting the pieces back together, I think.
Yeah. I was worried about you.
No. Each time, I seem to come out with battle scars,
but that's why I'm there, to purge whatever that is.
It's not a joy ride, you know?
It's going to be whatever it needs to be.
Do you think I should do it?
I mean, you know you best,
but, like, like I said, no matter what happens,
I think it's what the medicine intends for you.
And, you know, having good people around you,
I think it's the best scenario you could ask for with it,
you know?
♪♪
Sandoval: Make sure you relax, release, and allow.
In perfect love and in perfect trust,
we offer you this sacrament.
Journey well, my brother.
And you can begin.
One. Two.
Three. Four.
Five. Six.
Seven. A little more. Eight.
Nine. And excellent.
Cover your nose and mouth.
Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it.
Hold it. Hold it.
Eight. Seven.
Six. Five.
Four. Three.
♪♪
♪♪
Sandoval: Just relax.
♪♪
Love.
Love.
Love.
Love.
Love.
Love.
♪♪
Love.
Love.
Love.
Love.
Love.
Love.
Love.
Love.
Love.
Love.
♪♪
I was thinking a lot about the importance of love.
Thinking that you can quantify love,
which is something that I would have normally said
that you can't do.
But now I feel like you can quantify love,
and it would be a begrudging thing
to pretend that you can't quantify love.
And there's no shortage of it.
You can just be very loving all the time, and it's okay.
I'm alive. Wow.
I don't know what happened, really.
What happened?
You kept saying, "Love. Love. Love."
I just said the word "love" repeatedly?
-It's -- -How is this even possible?
I'm the most cynical person.
But I guess people already recognize
that love is a good thing. [ Laughs ]
If someone said that a cookie was made with love,
I would scoff at that and say,
"Where is this ingredient, love, in this cookie?
This can't be quantified."
But now I feel like,
yes, you can make a cookie with love.
It means they care.
Still, if I had a cookie company,
I would not list love as an ingredient.
But I understand the sentiment.
I understand the sentiment.
I even love the sentiment.
It's so strange that these compounds exist
and that they do this.
And what is the purpose of any of this?
5-MeO-DMT just exists
in a toad's venom,
and people may have only started using it 30 years ago,
and it produces this peak experience of love?
I can't believe it. It's so amazing.
Everyone should have this experience,
but there aren't enough toads for everyone.
So it has to be done synthetically.
♪♪
Anyone who watches this should be very careful with the venom,
because it's not like other psychedelics.
Don't let the name 5-MeO-DMT fool you
into thinking this is similar to DMT.
It's certainly something that should never be done alone.
10 grams, 5 methoxyindole.
With that disclaimer, it is extraordinary,
and I hope people protect this toad.
I hope they study the toad.
6.32 milliliters oxalyl chloride.
And I hope they synthetically reconstitute its venom
so that he can be left alone to bury himself in holes
and eat flies and do the things that a toad likes to do.
9 milliliters dymethylamine.
I know I said I wouldn't include it as an ingredient,
but love.
♪♪
Thank you so much, Mr. Toad.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
♪♪
I'm going to wash my lips.
♪♪
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