Ritter
Hazard to Others
Posts: 370
Registered: 20-6-2008
Location: Earth
Member Is Offline
Mood: Curious
|
|
5-Methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine from toads
I inquired about Bufo alvarius (the Sonoran Desert Toad) at an exotic reptile shop in California & was told that is an endangered
species & therefore can not be found in legitimate commerce. I do recall reading an article some years ago about a guy in the Tucson area who
apparently has a steady supply of 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine as a result of his ready access to these animals.
[Edited on 18-7-2008 by Ritter]
Ritter
=============================
\"The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.\"
Karl Marx
|
|
|
ScienceSquirrel
International Hazard
Posts: 1863
Registered: 18-6-2008
Location: Brittany
Member Is Offline
Mood: Dogs are pets but cats are little furry humans with four feet and self determination! 
|
|
The Cane Toad is widely available as a pet around here.
They would not stand a chance in the winter if they escaped so there are no controls.
The skin contains glands that secrete bufotenin, some people have tried it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bufotenin
|
|
|
JohnWW
International Hazard
Posts: 2849
Registered: 27-7-2004
Location: New Zealand
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Cane toads, a.k.a. bufo marinus? (Also known as Giant toad, Marine toad, Giant marine toad, South American cane toad, Dominican toad, spring chicken
(Belize) ). They have become Australia's number one introduced pest! (with the possible exception of introduced rabbits and foxes, and the dingos
originally from mainland Asia that were introduced by Aborigines probably during the last ice age). They were introduced to Queensland from South
America in 1935, ostensibly to control the cane beetle which was damaging sugar cane crops there; but they proved absolutely useless for the purpose,
forcing farmers to continue to use insecticides. However, due to the lack of any predator that can eat them and live to tell the tale, they have
spread in plague numbers during successive rainy seasons to all over Queensland except the desert areas, northeastern New South Wales where they are
believed to have reached Newcastle (see http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/pestsweeds/IdentifyingACan... ), and the north of the Northern Territory (where they have reached Darwin). They
are certainly no pet there!
They could survive the winters in my part of New Zealand, if they ever got here, noting the survival here of the green frog introduced from Australia;
see http://www.biosecurity.govt.nz/pest-and-disease-response/pes...
They were also introduced to some islands of Hawaii, also to control insect pests; and an accidental release of them occurred in Florida in 1955,
where they were also being tested at a research station for use to control sugar cane pests, and from where they may have spread to Georgia.
They are playing havoc with wildlife that are accustomed to eating the Australian green frog, such as hawks, eagles, kites, goannas, snakes, and
crocodiles. The only sort of predator that could eat them would be one that could remove and discard the skins, and eat only the flesh and insides;
indeed, some dead predated cane toads have been found in that condition, but it is not known what the predator was (rats are suspected).
Bufotenin is the main poison in their skins, but there are others present, such as bufonin. The poisons are hallucinogenic in sub-lethal amounts, and
used by drug addicts; the previous right-wing Queensland state government made it an offense to "ingest" cane toads.
See also these mostly Australian and US sites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_Toad
http://www.nrm.qld.gov.au/factsheets/pdf/pest/pa21.pdf
http://www.fdrproject.org/pages/toads.htm
http://www.jcu.edu.au/dept/PHTM/staff/rsbufo.htm
http://www.austmus.gov.au/factsheets/canetoad.htm
http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/animals/canetoad.shtml
http://www.feral.org.au/content/species/cane_toad.cfm
http://www.jcu.edu.au/school/phtm/PHTM/staff/rsbufo.htm
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/BODY_UW046
http://www.wec.ufl.edu/extension/wildlife_info/frogstoads/bu...
http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/nature_conservation/wildlife/threa...
http://savanna.ntu.edu.au/information/r0/t3/r0_t3_1.html
http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/canetoad.htm
http://www.csiro.au/science/CaneToadResearch.html
http://www.csiro.au/resources/pfib.html
http://www.csiro.au/promos/ozadvances/Series15Cane.htm
http://www.issg.org/database/species/ecology.asp?si=113&...
http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/references.php...
http://pick4.pick.uga.edu/mp/20q?search=Bufo+marinus&bur...
http://nis.gsmfc.org/nis_factsheet.php?toc_id=203
http://www.honoluluzoo.org/cane_toad.htm
http://www.natureserve.org/explorer/servlet/NatureServe?sear...
http://www.rainforestconservation.org/data_sheets/frogs/b_ma...
http://www.stopthetoad.org.au/
http://www.canetoadbattle.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A12945017
|
|
|
ScienceSquirrel
International Hazard
Posts: 1863
Registered: 18-6-2008
Location: Brittany
Member Is Offline
Mood: Dogs are pets but cats are little furry humans with four feet and self determination!
|
|
The current assumption is that they cannot survive in the British Isles and associated territories eg Channel Islands, IOM etc.
I appreciate the fact that they are a noxious pest in other parts of the world.
|
|
|
ScienceSquirrel
International Hazard
Posts: 1863
Registered: 18-6-2008
Location: Brittany
Member Is Offline
Mood: Dogs are pets but cats are little furry humans with four feet and self determination!
|
|
Currently Datura stramonium is an annual weed around here but the Brugmansia species are grown as potted perennials that are planted out into beds in
the summer but spend the winter months in greenhouses.
Our chickens spend the night roosting in apple, plum and elder trees when they escape and spend the night out.
|
|
|
Nicodem
Super Moderator
Posts: 4230
Registered: 28-12-2004
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Bufo marinus does contain bufotenine, but it also contain other toxins (steroidal cardiotoxins if I remember correctly).
Besides the idea that bufotenin is a psychedelic is a myth that probably originated due to its structural relatedness to psilocin,
N,N-dimethyltryptamine and its 5-methoxy analogue, but also not to neglect the folklore connecting toads with witchcraft. An old Nature (or was it in
Science?) paper describes the bioassays of several human volunteers with bufotenin (applied IM, I think). Most only had more or less serious
peripheral symptoms of toxicity and only a couple of them reported any CNS activity at all and no psychedelic phenomena whatsoever. The conclusion was
that bufotenin being a fairly acidic phenol (more so than the regioisomeric psilocin) penetrates the blood-brain barrier poorly, thus rather than
having any CNS activity it has mostly just peripheral toxicity by competing with serum serotonine (which in the periphery acts as a vascular hormone).
Therefore even though one could expect bufotenine to have some agonistic activity at the 5-HT2A receptors in the brain, the amount required to
activate them would have to be so big as to cause peripheral toxicity leading to death rather than psychedelic effects.
…there is a human touch of the cultist “believer” in every theorist that he must struggle against as being
unworthy of the scientist. Some of the greatest men of science have publicly repudiated a theory which earlier they hotly defended. In this lies their
scientific temper, not in the scientific defense of the theory. - Weston La Barre (Ghost Dance, 1972)
Read the The ScienceMadness Guidelines!
|
|
|
ScienceSquirrel
International Hazard
Posts: 1863
Registered: 18-6-2008
Location: Brittany
Member Is Offline
Mood: Dogs are pets but cats are little furry humans with four feet and self determination!
|
|
Toad licking is illegal in Queensland 
http://www.portdouglasdirectory.com/articles/view.cfm?articl...
[Edited on 24-7-2008 by ScienceSquirrel]
|
|
|
prole
Hazard to Self
Posts: 94
Registered: 4-8-2005
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
The anthropologist Dr. Wade Davis went in search of the mythical psychedelic toad, and spent much time looking at Bufo marinus and found
nothing but poisonous cardiac glycosides, such as bufotenine. No tryptamines. But he kept poking around and asking questions and eventually spoke
with Dr. Andrew Weil, who knew a guy who knew a guy who smoked the venom of a toad native only to the Arizona deserts. So Wade and Andy visit the
guy, and find that in squeezing the glands of Bufo alvarius a tryptamine-rich venom could be collected, dried, and smoked. Heat seemed to
destroy the cardiac glycosides, also present in the venom, but vapourized the 5-MeO DMT, causing a timeless moment of weird intoxication. Licking or
otherwise orally consuming the venom of either species of toad does not destroy the heart toxins, and any tryptamines present would be destroyed by
the gut. I do believe that 'toad licking' was a media hysteria gone out of control. Toad smoking is more in line with the facts. Even if one does
not respect local, state, and federal laws, CITES, the endangered species act, or the right of a species to live unmolested by thrill-seekers
(imagine aliens coming to squeeze endorphines from our brains for shits and giggles) licking toads of any species will at best make you sick, and at
worst make you dead.
Reference: Shadows in the Sun: Travels to Landscapes of Spirit and Desire, by Wade Davis. Chapter entitled 'Smoking Toad', page 203.
|
|
|
Ritter
Hazard to Others
Posts: 370
Registered: 20-6-2008
Location: Earth
Member Is Offline
Mood: Curious
|
|
| Quote: | Originally posted by prole
found nothing but poisonous cardiac glycosides, such as bufotenine. No tryptamines. . |
Bufotenine is a tryptamine - 5-hydroxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bufotenin
If you had a reliable source for it & a way to selectively methylate the 5-hydroxyl, you would have the psychoactive alkaloid found in Bufo
alvarius.
Ritter
=============================
\"The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.\"
Karl Marx
|
|
|
prole
Hazard to Self
Posts: 94
Registered: 4-8-2005
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Ok Ritter, you got me there. So it should read that 'there are no hallucinogenic tryptamines immediately available to the average layperson', or
maybe, 'contains no DMT or 5-MeO DMT, and therefore will not result in a buzz'. This all refers, of course, to Bufo marinus.
|
|
|
prole
Hazard to Self
Posts: 94
Registered: 4-8-2005
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
An update (source dated 2001) on bufotenine, an interview with Jonathan Ott, who ought to know: http://www.joergo.de/ottint_e.htm
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xpblue/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
