What would you think if your child received advice to “tune in, turn on, and drop out”? Would you think it was Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and the ‘Merry Pranksters’ Haight-Asbury Bay hippies era revisited?
What would you think if your child’s attention span issues were being treated by well-intentioned district psychologists with a known hallucinogen from a mushroom called psilocybin?
Think again, because that’s almost the case in many American schools, as the pharmacy kit-bag opens further with speculative treatment therapies for teen attention deficit disorder. Wide spread medication of American kids and adults is based on use of amphetamines and stimulants, which in recent clinical research are shown to mimic some of the hallucinogenic properties of mushroom psilocybin.
Over 6 million Americans each day receive behavior modifying medications like Ritalin for alleged attention deficit disorder. Perhaps no wider spreading trend, beyond over-budgeted and under-performing schools themselves, should cause parents to wonder than the medicating of teenagers in the pursuit of “normative standards”.
Straight Talk On Attention Disorder In Young People. Asking whether teens have attention span issues is like asking whether the Pope is Catholic? Of course they do…but it’s a matter of degree when comparing “Jody can’t concentrate on her class work” to increasingly obtuse and theoretical concepts of the “normative standard” for teens.
Here’s the current list of “usual suspect” symptoms to look for if you think your child may have attention deficit disorder. He’ll be fidgety, squirmy, evidencing low concentration, bored, unable to complete assignments, forgets what was taught in class.
Psychiatric Meds – Anti Depression And Anti Anxiety… Once you “prime the pump” and commence use of neural-blockers you’re playing in a complex arena. 4 million miles of nerve fibers are imbedded within your brain’s neural architecture of over 10 billion cells. Is it any wonder that “psychiatric theory” comes unstuck in the “reality” of this complexity and the necessary uniqueness of each person?
Stimulants And Amphetamines – Major Chemical Interventions. Remarkably, a clinically observed “over-active” child showing alleged attention deficit hyperactivity disorder receives mood-altering powerful stimulants from the class known as methylphenidates under brand names including Ritalin and Concerta. Now to the stimulants add another potion from the class of legally approved amphetamines under labels such as Dexedrine or Adderall.
Ritalin Side Effects. It’s true that 70% or more of the “standard population” will respond favorably to Ritalin for attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. However, that leaves a “big chunk of statistical change” or 20% or more of the same medicated population that runs the risk of becoming seriously and psychiatrically unglued by the experience.
* Hyper-Nervous Jitters. Physical manifestations of Ritalin abuse can include profound states of agitation and “jittery feeling”. Doctor’s response? Take another intervention drug or beta blocker blood pressure med…so you now have two powerful drugs interacting.
* Irritability And Relapse Depression. As powerful attention disorder meds wear off, people can experience anger, irritability and a form of ‘rebound’ short-term depression. Solution? Other drugs may be prescribed such as serotonin or the class of alpha agonist medications.
* Stomach And Digestive Disorders And Headaches. It’s a known fact that amphetamines and stimulants, including Ritalin, can cause appetite suppression. Solution? While avoiding Ritalin abuse, users may be asked to time their meds, in order to “wear off” just before meal times. Other Ritalin users experience stomach irritability that takes months to control, accordingly are instructed to “take your meds with your meals”.
* Sleeping Disorder. “Short” and “long” acting stimulants remain neural-blockers, not matter which way you look at it. Not surprisingly, the chemically induced stated of “controlled stimulation” carries some unwanted baggage, such as sleeping disorders. Reduced meds may be a partial solution.
* Increased Blood Pressure And Blood Glucose. Borderline diabetics may trigger adult onset diabetes due to elevated blood glucose. Similarly, these stimulants and amphetamines meds stimulate all sorts of metabolic activity, including blood pressure.
* Nervous Tics Exacerbated. If a patient normally exhibits the sort of patterned nervousness and “tics”, then these drugs will amplify these tics as well as the underlying attention span disorder complex.
Non Pharmaceutical Alternatives. Fortunately, families can now turn back into time, and begin selective use of various herbs like St. Thomas Wort, nature’s valium, rosemary, ginseng, centella asiatica as well as to an evolving class of exercise and visual programming aids that allegedly can actually train the ADD-HD person to create new neural pathways (think brain right and left hemispheres) to adjust for certain imbalances.
If you have ever heard of the Psychedelic Toad or about people licking toads to get high, it is most likely they were talking about Bufo Alvarius. Also called the Sonoran Desert toad and the Colorado River toad, Bufo Alvarius is unique because of its venom. These large toads have glands that produce a milky white venom that is composed of as much as fifteen percent the alkaloid 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MEO-DMT). This is a powerful hallucinogen, the mind altering effects of which were discovered in the late 1950s. 5-MEO-DMT is the active ingredient of hallucinogens used traditionally by several South American tribes.
The fact that a toad secretes a substance that can alter the human mind may lead to speculation about the “Frog Prince” fairy tale. In this folk legend, a woman finds a frog in the wild, kisses it, and it turns into a handsome prince. Could this ancient tale actually be based on fact? After all, if someone were to lick not a frog but the right kind of a toad, perhaps she might experience hallucinations that made her imagine the amphibian was transforming into a handsome prince. This theory is merely speculation, of course. In reality, licking the venom of toads or any other animal may be highly dangerous and is certainly not recommended.
Albert Most, the author of “Bufo Alvarius: The Psychedelic Toad of the Sonoran Desert” does not discuss the licking of toad venom in his text. Rather, his information involves drying and then smoking the toad venom in order to achieve what he calls “almost overwhelming psychedelic effects.” These effects are evidently not unlike those generated by LSD, in which hallucinations, visual illusions and distortions of the perception occur. The episode is relatively short, however, perhaps as little as fifteen minutes, after which, Most writes, “There is no hangover or harmful effect.”
It has been reported that Bufo Alvarius toads have been an element in the rituals of native shamans for hundreds of years. Returning to ancient European folklore, witches are often associated with toads. Toads supposedly give warts to people, and witches were frequently portrayed with large warts. In our more enlightened age, it is now known that so-called witches were more like wise women, possessing useful knowledge about medicinal herbs and plants. Could it be that these wise women were also aware of the powerful effects of toad venom?
Literature published by the California State Department of Fish and Game states that the problem of people trying to become intoxicated from licking the skin of toads or smoking dried toad venom is sufficiently extensive that laws against toad licking have been passed by some states, and that toad venom is currently classified as a controlled substance.
The reason why someone may want Bufo Alvarius toads may surprise you. It is to milk them. Perhaps the idea of milking a toad may seem like a joke. You may even have already thought that the punch line to the “how do you milk a toad?” joke would be “First you get a very small stool.” But you may be assured this is no joke. People actually do milk Bufo Alvarius toads.
What is toad venom used for? The milky white venom of the Bufo Alvarius toad contains the alkaloid 5- methoxy- N,N- dimethyltryptamine (5-MEO-DMT) which has very powerful hallucinogenic properties. Although there have been rumors and urban legends about people licking toads to get high, those who use toad venom do not actually ingest it. Rather, they have been known to dry the venom and then smoke precisely measured quantities of it.
How do you get one of these remarkable toads? If you live in or wish to visit the southwest United States, the toad, known both as the Colorado River toad and the Sonoran Desert toad, is found mainly in the Sonoran Desert. Their known range reaches from the south east of California into lowland Arizona and extreme southwestern New Mexico, at elevations that vary from sea level all the way up to over 1500 meters.
Once you get to this area, you will want to know what to look for. The Bufo Alvarius is a large toad, the largest species native to North America. Their leathery skin coloration varies from olive brown to black, with warts colored pale orange and a beige colored undercarriage. It is remarkable for the large, unique oval to sausage-shaped glands on the upper sides of its arms and legs and on its neck. These are the glands that are milked for their venom.
A nocturnal amphibian, Bufo Alvarius spends most of the day under the ground and away from the bright sun and high temperatures of the Sonoran Desert. As darkness falls, they move outside and hang around moist areas near rivers and irrigation ditches. The best time to find them is during the breeding season, from May through July. Toad hunters should equip themselves with a cloth carrying sack and a good flashlight.
For someone who is interested in owning a Bufo Alvarius toad, whether for the purpose of milking its hallucinogenic venom or simply to have a fascinating and unusual pet, there is an alternative to making a trek to the Sonoran Desert and splashing around irrigation ditches with a flashlight after dark. That option is to purchase one, or perhaps a male and female pair of adult Colorado River toads. One company that offers these toads for sale, along with other ethnobotanical products, is Bounding Bear Botanicals. The company is based in Lawrence, Kansas, not the Sonoran Desert, but they have a convenient on-line system that allows customers to make purchases via the Internet. It should be noted that Bufo Alvarius toads are sold with the caution that they are poisonous, and should be kept away from children and animals.
Amanita Muscaria mushrooms are noted for their psychoactive properties, due to their containing the hallucinogenic chemicals ibotenic acid and muscimol. Also known as toadstools, these mushrooms have long been associated with magic in literature. The caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland is portrayed as sitting on one as he smokes his suspicious pipe, and in animated cartoons, Smurfs are seen to live in Amanita mushrooms. Of course, circles of mushrooms growing in the forest are frequently referred to as fairy rings.
It has been reported that as early as 2000 B.C. people in India and Iran were using for religious purposes a plant called Soma or Haoma. A Hindu religious hymn, the Rig Veda also refers to the plant, Soma, although it is not specifically identified. It is believed this plant was the Amanita Muscaria mushroom, a theory popularized in the book “Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality” by R. Gordon Wasson. Other authors have argued that the manna from heaven mentioned in the Bible is actually a reference to magic mushrooms. Images of mushrooms have been identified in cave drawings dated to 3500 B.C.
In the church of Plaincourault Abbey in Indre, France is a fresco painted in 1291 A.D. of Adam and Eve standing on either side of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A serpent is entwined around the tree, which looks unmistakably like a cluster of Amanita Muscaria mushrooms. Could it be true that the apple from the Garden of Eden may actually have been an hallucinogenic mushroom?
Siberian shamans are said to have ingested Amanita Muscaria for the purpose of reaching a state of ecstasy so they could perform both physical and spiritual healing. Viking warriors reportedly used the mushroom during the heat of battle so they could go into a rage and perform otherwise impossible deeds.
In the Kamchatka peninsula of Russia the medicinal use of Amanita Muscaria topically to treat arthritis has also been reported anecdotally. L. Lewin, author of “Phantastica: Narcotic and Stimulating Drugs: Their Use and Abuse” (Kegan Paul, 1931) wrote that the fly-agaric was in great demand by the Siberian tribes of northeast Asia, and tribes who lived in areas where the mushroom grew would trade them with tribes who lived where it could not be found. In one occasion one reindeer was traded for one mushroom.
It has been theorized that the toxicity of Amanitas Muscaria varies according to location and season, as well as how the mushrooms are dried.
Finally, it should be noted that the author of this article does not in any way recommend, encourage nor endorse the consumption of Amanita Muscaria mushrooms. It is believed that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration lists Amanita Muscaria as a poison. Some companies that sell these mushrooms refer to them as “poisonous non-consumables.”
The Amanita muscaria mushroom, also known as fly-agaric has been variously described as a poison, a gateway to mental clarity and a religious sacrament.
Few would disagree that the appearance of the Amanita muscaria mushroom is dramatic and very colorful. Although their facade is distinctive, with their bright red and yellow colors with white spots on the caps, it must be noted that within the Amanita genus are the Amanita virosa, known as Destroying Angel and Amanita phalloides, called the Death Cap, and it has been stated that more than 90 percent of deaths caused by mushroom poisoning are caused by Amanita species. To make matters worse, the so-called good Aminitas look very similar to the more deadly ones.
The name muscaria derives from musca, the Latin word for a fly. It is commonly believed that this was because the mushroom was used as a fly-killing insecticide, although it has recently been argued that there is no valid evidence to support the idea that fly agaric mushrooms were ever used for this purpose. A more likely explanation is that ingestion of the mushroom caused a delirium similar to mental illness. During the Middle Ages it was believed that mental illness was caused by flies entering a person’s head.
In the book “Plants of the Gods” authors Richard Evans Schultes and Albert Hoffman wrote, “The use of hallucinogenic plants has been a part of human experience for many millennia, yet modern Western societies have only recently become aware of the significance that these plants have had in shaping the history of primitive and even of enhanced cultures. In fact, the past twenty years have witnessed a vertiginous growth in interest in the use and possible value of hallucinogens in our own modern, industrialized, and urbanized society.”
Contemporary users describe its effects as including a dreamy intoxicated sensation, great mental clarity, uniquely different from the effects of such hallucinogens as LSD, mescaline and psilocybin. Alterations of the senses include visual, hearing and tasting sensations. Side effects are often listed as including nausea, vomiting, loss of balance, profuse salivation and sweating, chills and convulsions. Unlike the effects of alcohol, it is said not to leave a hangover effect afterwards. It should not be surprising that, because mushrooms are a natural, rather than a manufactured psychoactive, its described effects span quite a wide range. These effects take from thirty to sixty minutes to commence, and the experience lasts from three or four to ten or more hours.
In conclusion it should be noted that the amanita muscaria mushroom is listed by U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a poison. It is not uncommon for people who sell Amanita muscaria mushrooms to refer to them as poisonous non-consumables. The author of this article does encourage, recommend nor endorse their being eaten, smoked or ingested in any way.
