Iran - Toads the latest enemy in Iran's war on drugs

[chaos69]

Toads the latest enemy in Iran's war on drugs.
Addicts rolling and smoking skins, says doctor

Robert Tait
guardian.co.uk, Monday 16 February 2009 17.27 GMT

Opium, heroin and hashish have long been the targets of Iran's war on drugs. Now officials have turned their attention to a dangerous new source of substance abuse: toads.

Experts say addicts have begun breeding toads for the purpose of rolling their dried skins inside cigarettes. Smoking them releases potentially addictive hallucinations, which are produced by a poisonous chemical normally used by the amphibians as a weapon against prey and predators.

Dr Azarakhsh Mokri, of Iran's national centre of addiction studies, said action was needed to combat "toad abuse" in a country identified by the UN as having the highest rate of opiate abuse in the world. He did not specify the species involved.

"Any substance which has abusive potential should be subject to treatment and preventive measures," he told Iranian news agency ISNA. "The existence of toad abuse does not mean that the toad has overwhelmed the country but it does mean we should be prepared for prevention against abuse of such kind and recognise it in order to practice treatment for addiction to it.

"There should be a special treatment protocol and experienced experts for any kind of drug abuse."

Toad skin is the latest trend in a changing pattern of addiction in Iran. In recent years traditional substances have been supplemented by industrially produced chemicals such as ecstasy and concentrated heroin.

The two most common new drugs are heroin variants known as crystal and crack, which can be processed to 95% purity and have caused a spate of fatal overdoses.

Iran's chief police officer, General Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam, has said officers are ill-equipped to combat industrially produced chemical drugs, even though the country spends an estimated £7.7bn a year fighting traffickers and treating addicts.

Instead, police have intensified their efforts against heroin and opium, which is smuggled in from Afghanistan. This week, officers in the central province of Qom discovered 282.5kg of opium hidden in the stomachs of 17 camels that had been transported in vans from near the Afghan border. Agents had been alerted by the sudden sale of cheap camel meat, which is rare in Iran.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has estimated that more than 4 million of Iran's 70 million people are addicted to drugs. The government puts the figure at 1.2 million addicts and 700,000 recreational users. Some 3,500 Iranian police and military personnel have been killed in armed clashes with drug traffickers since 1979.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Interesting find.

[Euphoric]

Rehab for toad users? Potentially addictive hallucinogen? Is this some new toad, or one of the traditional toads user around the world for this?

Does anyone know what rehab in Iran consists of? I'm curious.

[Sven99]

presumably one of the psychoactive toads from the Amazon. I think it secretes DMT based chemicals to deter predators from eating it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_toad

[dr. swim]

Experts say addicts have begun breeding toads for the purpose of rolling their dried skins inside cigarettes. Smoking them releases potentially addictive hallucinations, which are produced by a poisonous chemical normally used by the amphibians as a weapon against prey and predators.

What "Experts" would these be? Iranian "Experts" must have the education of a U.S. 5th grader...

Addictive hallucinations...LMFAO...

[old hippie 56]

Imagine "rehab in Iran" is probably prison or executed.

[enquirewithin]

Hasn't this toad-licking myth been discredited before?

[Herbal Healer 019]

I thought toad venom (cane toads?) contains 5-meo-dmt...It isn't a myth according to erowid

[enquirewithin]

Originally Posted by Herbal Healer 019

I thought toad venom (cane toads?) contains 5-meo-dmt...It isn't a myth according to erowid

True but I don't think they are exactly a social problem. I remember Jonathan Ott, saying that 5 MEO-DMT had "no recreational potential'', not that it is uninteresting.

[Potter]

Probably a lot of lashings.

[Frond]

The Sonoran Desert Toad, Bufo Alvarius, has venom glands that produce Bufetenin i.e. 5-HO-DMT, and 5-MeO-DMT. I presume that whatever hallucinogenic toads they're on about are going to be quite similar. Neither substance has addictive potential, and both substances are in fact endogenous neurohormones and close analogues of serotonin, and are found naturally in trace quantities in the human body, along with N,N-DMT.

That's right kiddies... you're all full of illegal drugs. Right now. Fancy that.

Milking the toads for their venom in general is much more productive than killing them and smoking dried skins.

the two most common new drugs are heroin variants known as crystal and crack

I guess they mean crystal meth and crack cocaine but don't know their ass from a hole in the ground, which is why they think they're a type of heroin?

I'm not even going to mention anything about the political aspects of combating opium trafficking from Afghanistan.

This article is full of fail, but what else is new.

[dr. swim]

They only mention hashish, I wonder if they even know what plant it comes from.

[Greenport]

The compounds in these toads, 5-MeO-DMT and bufotenin are not addictive - they are hallucinogenic (both in different ways) but not really 'visual'.

[dressel11]

licking a toad will make you feel nausious with very little visuals at best. You can milk the toads venom glands without harming them and smoke it when its dried. it contains 5-meo-dmt and bufotenine. sometimes just bufotenine depending on the toad. bufo alvarus has both while bufo marinus has just bufotenine. also highly stressed out bufo alvarus has more bufotenine and less 5-meo-dmt.

to kill them and smoke the skins is crime against nature.

dressel11 added 60 Minutes and 15 Seconds later...

Also I want to add real quick that these toads will not breed in captivity without being injected with a certain hormone. I purchased a male and female pare for $300 thinking I was gonna make a fortune breeding them since I had luck breeding geckoes in the past. Now I just have them as pets. I have never milked thier venom either.