WEBVTT - From Story of the Week with Joel Stein: The Hallucinogenic Toad Doctor 0:00:15.436 --> 0:00:21.476 Pushkin. Hey, broken record listeners, It's justin Richmond. We'll be 0:00:21.476 --> 0:00:24.756 back with our regularly scheduled episode next week, but today 0:00:24.956 --> 0:00:27.396 I'm bringing you a preview of a new show from Pushkin. 0:00:27.636 --> 0:00:30.276 I think you're really going to like. It's called Story 0:00:30.276 --> 0:00:33.676 of the Week with journalist Joel Stein. A lot of us, 0:00:33.756 --> 0:00:36.876 myself included, wish we had the time and attention span 0:00:36.996 --> 0:00:40.196 to leisurely pass through the latest and long form journalism. 0:00:40.236 --> 0:00:44.836 But the reality is most of us don't. Joel Stein, however, does, 0:00:45.396 --> 0:00:49.156 and is sharing his findings with all of us. Each week, 0:00:49.236 --> 0:00:52.996 Joel chooses an article that fascinates him, convinces the writer 0:00:53.076 --> 0:00:55.476 of said article to tell him all about it, and 0:00:55.516 --> 0:00:59.876 then interrupts it perfectly good conversation by mostly talking about himself. 0:01:00.316 --> 0:01:02.516 The story Joel covers on a given week might be 0:01:02.636 --> 0:01:05.316 one everyone is talking about, or it could be a 0:01:05.356 --> 0:01:08.716 story that you missed, like the Vergess piece about a 0:01:08.836 --> 0:01:12.756 rock groupie termed Hacker who had huge corporations at her mercy. 0:01:13.356 --> 0:01:15.956 Either way, it'll always be a story you tell your 0:01:15.996 --> 0:01:18.836 friends about, a story that sticks with you long after 0:01:18.876 --> 0:01:23.396 you forget whatever headline you just doomscrolled through Today's story 0:01:23.596 --> 0:01:27.116 about smoking hallucinogenic toads was written by Commone de Grief 0:01:27.556 --> 0:01:30.756 for The New Yorker. A Mexican doctor turned to toad 0:01:30.756 --> 0:01:34.036 poison to help cure himself of a crack addiction. The 0:01:34.156 --> 0:01:37.356 doctor then talked about his experiences during a TEDx talk 0:01:37.476 --> 0:01:40.476 at Burning Man, which started his career as a world's 0:01:40.556 --> 0:01:43.996 leading proponent of the drug. All right, here's the clip 0:01:44.036 --> 0:01:46.316 about the toad smoking doctor. I hope you enjoy it 0:01:46.396 --> 0:01:48.476 as much as I did. You can hear the full 0:01:48.516 --> 0:01:51.196 episode and more from Story of the Week wherever you 0:01:51.236 --> 0:01:58.676 get your podcasts. The Story of the Week is The 0:01:58.916 --> 0:02:03.236 Pied Piper of Psychedelic Toads by command de Grief from 0:02:03.276 --> 0:02:11.956 The New Yorker. Back in May, a friend of mine 0:02:11.956 --> 0:02:14.196 invited me to a rich person's house in the Hollywood 0:02:14.276 --> 0:02:17.476 Hills for one of these elite all day networking events. 0:02:18.276 --> 0:02:20.956 I'd gone to dinner she'd organized before, and they were fun. 0:02:22.236 --> 0:02:24.156 A few days before I was going to go, she 0:02:24.436 --> 0:02:27.836 called me to give me some more details. It was 0:02:27.956 --> 0:02:32.636 a mushroom party where we were going to take mushrooms 0:02:32.676 --> 0:02:34.676 and then go home and somehow take care of our 0:02:34.716 --> 0:02:39.756 kids after eating mushrooms. This seems to be happening all 0:02:39.796 --> 0:02:43.036 the time. Over the last few years, psychedelics have become 0:02:43.116 --> 0:02:47.116 weirdly mainstream. People I know go to mushroom parties, take 0:02:47.196 --> 0:02:50.436 trips to South America to do ayahuasca and see couple's 0:02:50.436 --> 0:02:54.676 therapists in which they bond while on psilocybin. Then there's 0:02:54.836 --> 0:02:59.436 Toad Poison from the Sonoran Desert. Toad is the Mount 0:02:59.436 --> 0:03:02.556 Everest of psychedelics. The trip can be as short as 0:03:02.596 --> 0:03:05.836 a half an hour, but apparently it's so intense it 0:03:05.876 --> 0:03:09.396 can wipe out your ego, leaving you all alone in 0:03:09.436 --> 0:03:12.756 the empty void, kind of like hosting a new podcast 0:03:12.796 --> 0:03:16.796 in twenty twenty two. Nevertheless, celebrities like Joe Rogan and 0:03:16.836 --> 0:03:20.476 Mike Tyson love Toad. You know, once I did, I 0:03:20.516 --> 0:03:23.076 wanted to do it again and again and again, And 0:03:23.076 --> 0:03:25.356 they say you shouldn't do it too much. Way, I gotta, 0:03:25.556 --> 0:03:27.596 you know, grasp, what's going on here? Why am I 0:03:27.636 --> 0:03:30.236 feeling that? Why? Why did this? In a weird way? 0:03:30.316 --> 0:03:32.756 Like humbled you. I don't think you should listen to 0:03:32.756 --> 0:03:34.676 the people say you shouldn't you know too much. I 0:03:34.716 --> 0:03:36.036 think you should do it as much as you want. 0:03:36.116 --> 0:03:38.356 That's what I agree with, too. Yeah, I agree you 0:03:38.356 --> 0:03:41.596 could handle it. Apparently the ego dissolution doesn't last so 0:03:41.676 --> 0:03:44.396 long it keeps you from going on Joe Rogan. So 0:03:44.436 --> 0:03:46.116 I was pretty excited when I saw a story in 0:03:46.116 --> 0:03:49.476 The New York Are titled The Pied Piper of Psychedelic Toads, 0:03:50.076 --> 0:03:55.636 and I had a lot of questions. Writing is hard? 0:03:55.836 --> 0:03:59.156 Who's got that kind of time when you're already busy 0:03:59.236 --> 0:04:01.916 trying to be Joe Stein until it turns on the 0:04:02.116 --> 0:04:06.036 mike me It twiddles enough because the journalist friend, who's 0:04:06.076 --> 0:04:11.156 got in that jewel job? Single story? Just listen to 0:04:11.276 --> 0:04:22.076 smart people speak conversation. Filming information is a story. The 0:04:22.156 --> 0:04:24.516 story in The New Yorker was written by Command de Grief. 0:04:25.116 --> 0:04:28.156 He's a South African journalist who often covers the illegal 0:04:28.196 --> 0:04:31.756 trading of endangered animals like abalone, which is how he 0:04:31.796 --> 0:04:34.716 found the Sonoran desert toad, which was being foraged for 0:04:34.756 --> 0:04:38.716 its hallucinogenic properties. But that led him to a much 0:04:38.756 --> 0:04:42.716 weirder story about the number one toad Guru. Okay, so 0:04:42.756 --> 0:04:46.956 you heard about this Mexican doctor named Octavio Reddick who 0:04:46.996 --> 0:04:49.996 had become like the guy you go to to smoke toad. 0:04:50.516 --> 0:04:52.636 So he went down to meet him at his house 0:04:52.956 --> 0:04:56.876 in Mexico, And so, first of all, can he describe 0:04:56.956 --> 0:04:59.516 what he looked like and what he what he was 0:04:59.556 --> 0:05:05.196 like to be around. Yeah, he is good looking. He's 0:05:05.556 --> 0:05:09.276 kind of leanly muscular. He has long, dark hair, he 0:05:09.316 --> 0:05:13.476 has a beard, kind of like a telegenic cliche reincarnation 0:05:13.476 --> 0:05:15.876 of Jesus in a sense, like he looks like a guru. 0:05:16.276 --> 0:05:19.716 He looked like every cult leader on all the Netflix 0:05:19.796 --> 0:05:25.916 documentaries about Yeah, besides his good looks, he's very intelligent. 0:05:26.116 --> 0:05:30.556 He's very charming. He gives the impression that he really 0:05:30.596 --> 0:05:32.556 wants you to like him in a way that you 0:05:32.556 --> 0:05:35.996 don't dislike him for it. There's something almost quite oh wow, 0:05:36.476 --> 0:05:39.516 there's something quite pure about it. So you liked him 0:05:39.556 --> 0:05:42.476 at times? I liked him very much, and it was 0:05:42.716 --> 0:05:44.836 it was interesting to kind of notice that in myself 0:05:45.076 --> 0:05:46.996 a lot of people like him very much. A lot 0:05:47.036 --> 0:05:50.276 of people venerate him in fact, like a god literally 0:05:50.476 --> 0:05:53.276 some people. And he hates shirts, takes his shirt off 0:05:53.316 --> 0:05:58.156 quite often. Yeah. Octavio the Guru of Toad grew up 0:05:58.156 --> 0:06:01.276 in Guadalajara. His dad taught calculus at a college and 0:06:01.316 --> 0:06:04.116 his mom owned a bookstore. He went to medical school, 0:06:04.196 --> 0:06:08.996 got married, had a kid, But then he tried crack cocaine, 0:06:08.876 --> 0:06:12.836 and like many who try crack cocaine, he became addicted. 0:06:13.516 --> 0:06:17.116 His life fell apart completely. At one point, he takes acid, 0:06:17.436 --> 0:06:20.196 picks up a hitchhiker, falls in love with her, and 0:06:20.396 --> 0:06:24.276 ends his marriage. Then, in two thousand and six, a 0:06:24.396 --> 0:06:29.076 friend introduced him to the toad. Octavia says that as 0:06:29.196 --> 0:06:32.636 soon as he inhaled, his cravings for crack completely went away. 0:06:33.316 --> 0:06:37.596 He found peace and his calling. He kicked his habit, 0:06:37.996 --> 0:06:40.396 he told me, by locking himself in a room and 0:06:40.436 --> 0:06:44.276 smoking toad secretion for an entire year, which is just 0:06:45.316 --> 0:06:47.756 kind of crazy for me to think about that volume 0:06:47.876 --> 0:06:52.956 of psychedelic experience being compressed into a year. But he 0:06:53.036 --> 0:06:55.196 was clean for the first time in years, and then 0:06:56.956 --> 0:06:59.596 you know, he started offering it to friends and giving 0:06:59.596 --> 0:07:03.436 it to other people. This is a weird definition of clean, right, Well, 0:07:03.436 --> 0:07:07.956 he wasn't, yeah, I suppose, so it looked like many 0:07:07.996 --> 0:07:11.996 other psychedelics. Toad secretion is not in any way chemically addictive, 0:07:13.196 --> 0:07:17.156 or it's thought to be very low intoxicity as well, 0:07:17.876 --> 0:07:19.916 so it's not like a thing of cravings. Some people 0:07:19.996 --> 0:07:21.796 just end up using it a lot, because I guess 0:07:21.836 --> 0:07:25.076 they like dissolving their ego a lot. I'm not sure. 0:07:26.076 --> 0:07:29.396 I am certainly not someone who would do that myself, 0:07:29.396 --> 0:07:32.796 but a lot of people do. Doctor Octavio got obsessed 0:07:32.836 --> 0:07:37.236 with toad when his brother visited his apartment. He said, quote, 0:07:37.636 --> 0:07:39.596 you would sit on the couch and a toad would 0:07:39.676 --> 0:07:42.876 jump out. He started looking into the history of toad 0:07:43.356 --> 0:07:45.756 and got introduced to this Seri tribe and had them 0:07:45.796 --> 0:07:49.676 try it. The elders there started talking about an ancient 0:07:49.676 --> 0:07:53.716 tradition of smoking toad, and that gave Octavio a sales pitch. 0:07:54.476 --> 0:07:57.956 Octavio got famous by making that very pitch. At a 0:07:57.996 --> 0:08:01.916 twenty thirteen TEDx talk at burning Man about smoking toad, 0:08:02.516 --> 0:08:05.756 which sounds like an onion headline. He stood up and 0:08:05.836 --> 0:08:11.916 he said, basically, I myself by smoking toad, I discovered 0:08:11.956 --> 0:08:15.156 myself that this medicine healing of more than three and 0:08:15.156 --> 0:08:19.156 a half years of proby adiction. And then I went 0:08:19.196 --> 0:08:25.116 and I healed this marginalized Native Mexican community, and through 0:08:25.116 --> 0:08:29.036 that work resurrected this practice that had been wiped out 0:08:29.836 --> 0:08:33.716 during the colonial era, which is about as good a 0:08:33.716 --> 0:08:36.556 pitch for a psychedelic as I think anyone would could 0:08:36.596 --> 0:08:40.516 come up with. And the craziest thing is that it 0:08:40.636 --> 0:08:43.196 might be true. There is no way of knowing if 0:08:43.236 --> 0:08:46.316 it's true. You don't think it's true, though, I don't 0:08:46.356 --> 0:08:49.036 know if it's my place as a non indigenous white 0:08:49.036 --> 0:08:52.476 guy from South Africa to really weigh in. As another 0:08:52.676 --> 0:08:56.596 non indigenous white guy, I will weigh in. Non indigenous 0:08:56.636 --> 0:09:00.916 white people are eager to believe this. We love a 0:09:00.996 --> 0:09:04.316 story about how non white people can teach us simple truths. 0:09:05.236 --> 0:09:08.236 Usually that person's Morgan Freeman. But we'll listen to an 0:09:08.276 --> 0:09:11.476 indigenous try if it's an excuse to get high. If 0:09:11.476 --> 0:09:15.116 an indigenous person said, don't build this pipeline, we'd never listen. 0:09:15.516 --> 0:09:19.076 But smoking a toad, we're totally in for that. So 0:09:19.316 --> 0:09:21.996 you buy to everyone in the world, it's gonna be 0:09:22.396 --> 0:09:26.796 a direct way through hober something inside of you that 0:09:26.996 --> 0:09:29.676 you just can't remember. He goes, We're a full off, 0:09:29.916 --> 0:09:40.476 so they were. Soon after the TEDx Talk, white people 0:09:40.516 --> 0:09:43.436 with dreadlocks started arriving in the Scenoran Desert just smoke 0:09:43.516 --> 0:09:48.396 toad and spend money. Octavia became the world's lead proponent 0:09:48.596 --> 0:09:51.956 and practitioner of toad smoking, like If you want to 0:09:51.956 --> 0:09:54.116 go to the top toadsmoking guy in the world, you 0:09:54.316 --> 0:09:57.676 travel to see Octavio, or just wait till he shows 0:09:57.756 --> 0:10:00.076 up with a basket of toads at your all day 0:10:00.076 --> 0:10:03.516 networking event in the Hollywood Hills. Toad smoking needed a 0:10:03.636 --> 0:10:08.036 rock star because it's not inherently appealing, not just because 0:10:08.036 --> 0:10:11.796 if it's scary, effects because the idea of it's gross, 0:10:11.796 --> 0:10:14.876 Like you can romanticize eating a mushroom that grew up 0:10:14.916 --> 0:10:18.756 from Mother Earth, but extracting poison from a frog and 0:10:18.836 --> 0:10:21.796 putting that into your body does not seem like a 0:10:21.836 --> 0:10:25.676 good idea. Now, all my knowledge about toad comes either 0:10:25.756 --> 0:10:29.316 from this Michael Pollen book about psychedelics or Beavis and 0:10:29.436 --> 0:10:34.876 butt Head. Are you sure you're licking right? Yeah? I 0:10:34.916 --> 0:10:37.276 don't get it. It's supposed to pack an awesome above 0:10:39.356 --> 0:10:44.716 and the Simpsons, Dad, are you liking toads? Nut licking toad? 0:10:45.756 --> 0:10:48.956 And in those situations people licked the toad, which is 0:10:48.956 --> 0:10:51.116 what I thought you did, But that's not at all 0:10:51.116 --> 0:10:54.756 what you do. If you lick practically any species of toad, 0:10:54.836 --> 0:10:57.716 you're likely to be hospitalized and may die. And some 0:10:57.756 --> 0:11:00.876 people have died from from doing exactly that. So just 0:11:00.996 --> 0:11:03.556 licking a toad. All toads are a little poisonous, yeah 0:11:03.596 --> 0:11:05.836 they are. They are very choices. But in this case, 0:11:06.196 --> 0:11:09.356 you grab this specific toad and I watch them do it. 0:11:09.436 --> 0:11:11.916 You basically go to these little bumps on their skin 0:11:11.996 --> 0:11:14.196 and you pop them like zeitz, and you put a 0:11:14.236 --> 0:11:19.916 glass above it, and there's white kind of ooze sticks 0:11:19.916 --> 0:11:22.236 to the glass and then you dry it and crystallize 0:11:22.236 --> 0:11:26.676 it and smoke it. Yeah, okay, And you know, the 0:11:26.716 --> 0:11:29.836 toads don't have the best time being picked up and squeezed, 0:11:29.916 --> 0:11:32.276 especially now that so many people are doing it. Some 0:11:32.316 --> 0:11:35.956 toads are caught and handled and squeezed repeatedly to the 0:11:35.996 --> 0:11:38.916 extent that their toad secretion has a kind of pinkish 0:11:38.956 --> 0:11:43.396 color from drops of blood getting into the toad. And 0:11:44.476 --> 0:11:46.556 you know, these toads used to be very abundant in 0:11:46.596 --> 0:11:49.436 pots of sonora in summer they would kind of bloom. 0:11:49.476 --> 0:11:54.116 And many areas where these toads were are now conspicuously 0:11:54.196 --> 0:11:57.756 absent of toads. So there are some concerns that they 0:11:57.796 --> 0:12:00.196 may be in trouble. And to any listeners who are 0:12:00.196 --> 0:12:03.556 curious about the mind bending effects of toad I would 0:12:03.596 --> 0:12:07.436 just say that the psychoactive compound in TOAD five m 0:12:07.436 --> 0:12:11.676 e O dmt can be synthesized cheaply and safely in 0:12:11.756 --> 0:12:17.436 laboratories and gives, according to a large number of TOAD smokers, 0:12:17.676 --> 0:12:20.556 in identical high without harming any toads. So there's a 0:12:20.596 --> 0:12:23.356 lot of people who say, smoke synthetic, don't smoke toad. 0:12:23.796 --> 0:12:28.996 This is the weirdest PSA that's ever been done. People, Please, please, 0:12:29.076 --> 0:12:32.596 for your own safety, smoke the synthetic toad, not the 0:12:32.636 --> 0:12:36.356 real toad. Yes, that was a preview of Story of 0:12:36.356 --> 0:12:40.036 the Week with Joel Stein, a new podcast from Pushkin Industries. 0:12:40.636 --> 0:12:43.396 Find Story of the Week wherever you get your podcasts.