Tempting as it may be, please don’t lick the toads.
The National Park Service made the plea last week to help protect the Sonoran desert toad, which secretes a toxin unlike any other found on the planet.
The effects of the toxin depend on your perspective. Some call it a dangerous poison that can make people sick and can even be deadly. Others call it the “God molecule,” a hallucinogenic so potent it is often compared to a religious experience.
But maybe keep your tongue off the toads, the park service said in a cheeky Facebook post lined with puns.
“As we say with most things you come across in a national park, whether it be a banana slug, unfamiliar mushroom or a large toad with glowing eyes in the dead of night, please refrain from licking,” it wrote alongside a creepy night-vision photo of a beady-eyed toad. “Thank you.”
Demand for the toad’s secretion has boomed in recent years, with a growing retreat industry serving those seeking the psychedelic experience. In some cases, the experience is treated as a ceremony, with participants paying hundreds or thousands of dollars. It typically lasts for 15 to 30 very intense minutes.
Licking the toads is not the way most people go about it. A substance in the toxins that the toad excretes when threatened, 5-MeO-DMT, can be dried into crystals and smoked in a pipe. It is illegal in the United States, where it is classified as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, but it is legal in Mexico.
It was not clear how often people have tried to lick the toads; the park service did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But smoking the toxin — commonly called Five or Bufo — is a practice that goes back decades.
Rising interest in the experience has brought new dangers to the animal, which is also known as the Colorado River toad and is found primarily in the Sonoran desert in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. They are typically targeted by predators such as raccoons and run over on roads, but they are now also the target of poaching, over-harvesting and illegal trafficking.
People collect the substance by stroking under the toad’s chin, initiating a defensive response. It then releases a substance that can be scraped, dried and smoked.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times .