Popular, new psychedelic drug in New York is illegal toad venom

Trendy New Yorkers have been taking a new, illegal psychedelic drug that comes from toads. Photo / Getty Images

Barrett Pall wanted to see what all the fuss around New York's new psychedelic drug was about so, he tried it for himself.

Sitting in his Soho, New York apartment Pall inhaled the illegal toad venom smoke through a glass stem pipe.

Thirty seconds later, the influencer and life coach was crying, he told the New York Post.

"I was crying really hard, yelling 'I'm so sorry' over and over," Pall recalled of his first experiment with the illegal psychedelic drug last year.

"I saw my younger self with my parents and ex-boyfriends in places [where] I'd been hurt."

After 45 minutes of being in a drug trip of "shooting through the universe" and "being reborn", Pall's experience concluded.

Barrett Pall is one of the New Yorkers who has undergone the drug trip multiple times and had a positive experience. Photo / Instagram

Since then, he has undergone the drug trip twice more.

The effects of inhaling the toad venom, which is found in Colorado River toads, are short but come on strong and immediately, the New York Post reports.

Drug researcher and users say that it leaves consumers immobile and unaware as well as side effects of extreme emotions, vomiting and euphoria.

One user told the New York Post that the toad venom was "a total fusion with God".

"It's such an intense experience that, in most cases, doing it at a party isn't safe," Alan K. ­Davis, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor at the Psychedelic Research Unit at Johns Hopkins University said.

"It's not a recreational drug."

Despite the side effects and threat of a 10-year prison sentence for possession of the substance, it has not stopped New Yorkers from inhaling the toad venom.

The illegal venom is extracted from Colorado River toads, also known as Sonoran Desert toads. Photo / 123RF

Pall and other users score the drug by hiring foreign "healers", often from Mexico, who travel throughout the US and distribute the toad venom at ceremonies at US$200 to US$500 ($319 to $798) per person.

Some of the "healers" operate more like "drug dealers" said Davis and they don't properly look after the psychedelic participants.

"If people get dosed too high, they can 'white out' and disassociate from their mind and body," Daivs added. "Anxiety can persist for days, and we've heard of people going to the emergency room."

The venom is extracted by "milking" the glands of the toads, also known as Sonoran Desert toads, and then drying it into a paste.

It has also been reported that once the drug trip wears off, users have experienced an afterglow that can trigger them to make major life changes, the New York Post revealed.

"I immediately broke up with my long-term boyfriend," said Pall, who also booked a trip around the world and decided to reconnect with his distant father.

"I was just so sure that everything I was deciding was right."

Pall recalls nothing but a positive experience of the drug trip. "My life has never been the same since."