Phoenix| Three teenagers from Arizona were admitted at the St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center this morning, after presumably licking psychoactive toads, in an ill-advised attempted to get high.
The three 18-year old students from the Mountain Pointe High School, Justin Murphy, Darell Sanders and Eric Adams, were transported by ambulance this morning after suffering from a severe intoxication and are still in a critical state, but fortunately the doctors no longer fear for their lives.
Five other teenagers accompanying them also “licked” the poisonous toad and got intoxicated. They were examined by the paramedics, but it seems they had not ingested as much toxin their three friends and they were finally allowed to go home.
“These kids say they just found the toad, and decided to lick it, like they had seen people do in movies,” says Dr. Ernest Palmer, who treated the three young men.“That’s a really stupid idea, they could have killed themselves! These kids were on the brink of overdose when they arrived at the hospital. It’s a miracle, that none of them died!”
Dr. Palmer, who is in charge of the teenagers’ cases, says they are very lucky to be alive. According to him, licking a poisonous toad of this size is “more dangerous than playing the Russian roulette.”
The three young men were celebrating their high school graduation with a group of friends in the Sonoran Desert, at a site commonly frequented by teenagers and young adults of the region, to party.
Around midnight, Justin Murphy allegedly moved away from the group to relieve himself in the desert, and sighted a large toad on the ground. Remembering something he had seen in Hollywood movies, he decided to catch it, and to bring it back to the party so he and his friends could get high by licking it.
Unfortunately, the toad the young men caught, was an Incilius alvarius also known as the Sonoran Desert toad or Colorado toad. It is one of the most dangerous type of psychoactive toad in the world, and is found in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States.
Its primary defense system is glands that produce a poison that covers its skin, and may be potent enough to kill a grown dog. It contains 5-MeO-DMT, a powerful psychedelic tryptamine, as well bufotenin, an alcanoid related to the neurotransmitter serotonin.
Ever since “licking toads” became popular with hippies in the 1960s, a few incidents implicating Incilius alvarius are reported in the United States every year.
The teenagers could now face some criminal investigation, as the Phoenix Police Department has confirmed that an investigation had been launched.
In Arizona, the Incilius alvarius has been designated as “endangered” and the law states that “It is unlawful to capture, collect, intentionally kill or injure, possess, purchase, propagate, sell, transport, import or export any native reptile or amphibian.”
The teenagers could, therefore, face some very serious charges, including capturing and harming an endangered animal, as well as charges of possession of illegal drugs.