Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 17, 1994                   TAG: 9402170064
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: ANGELS CAMP, CALIF.                                LENGTH: Medium

WARNING: `TOKE TOAD, GO TO JAIL'

These drug suppliers are green, squat and lumpy, with big bulging eyes.

These are toads - Bufo alvarius.

And these critters secrete a venom from glands on their backs.

Drying the venom produces a hallucinogenic drug, bufotenine, that can be smoked. Users and researchers say it produces a high that eclipses the psychedelic properties of LSD.

And yes, it's illegal. "Toke a toad, go to jail," suggest some wags.

"What is the human race going to do next? Grind up clarinets and smoke them?" asked Calaveras County narcotics agent Greg Elam.

After the arrest of Bob and Connie Shepard on charges of possessing bufotenine from four toads, state and local narcotics agents worried that there was a cult of toad abusers in the region.

They've determined that's not the case.

But literature confiscated from the couple's house indicates there is an underground of enthusiasts for the drug, agents said.

"It's a bizarre case," said Matt Campoy, commander of the Calaveras County drug task force.

Scientific journals trace use of the drug to ancient times. In the 1950s, the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency supported research on bufotenine as part of efforts to develop brainwashing agents, according to the August 1990 Scientific American.

Laws against its use in the United States date to the late 1960s. But the task force was unable to find records of any other arrests for possessing it.

Unrelated laws bar possession of the toads themselves, since their numbers are dwindling.

Ironically, the arrests came in a region known not for toads but for What is the human race going to do next? Grind up clarinets and smoke them? Greg Elam Narcotics agent frogs. A short story by Twain, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," was inspired by the Calaveras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee.

The Shepards are scheduled for arraignment next month on charges of possessing the drug.

Bob Shepard, 41, a former teacher and Explorer Scout leader, and his 37-year-old wife said they did not wish to talk to a reporter.

Agents quoted him as saying he got so high from the drug he could "hear electrons jumping orbitals in his molecules."

Authorities moved in when they heard Shepard had taken the toads to a school district learning center, where he was an instructor.