[This is a piece of journalistic satire that I wrote when I lived in Tucson]

David Pierce, a Tucson resident did not know much about amphibians and had never even owned an aquarium before the unfortunate day when he and his brother Ryan consumed a pill of ecstasy from what later turned out to be a tainted batch. Both brothers had bought the pills earlier that day in anticipation of going with some close friends to The New Dimension, a popular downtown club, for one of their all night dancing or "rave" parties, as they are popularly known. For some reason, David decided not to take his pill at the same time as his brother, and instead left for a quick trip to a nearby Circle-K to buy some bottled water. When he came back he was in for a terrible surprise. He opened the door to his small apartment, and immediately saw a pile of his brother Ryan's cloths scattered on and around his couch. Sitting on top of them was a toad. Initially, David did not even mentally connect this with his brother, thinking he must be taking a shower, and that the toad must have come in by itself. After looking around the apartment without finding Ryan, and then realizing that there were no crack anywhere sufficiently big for a toad to get in from outside, David finally realized the awful truth. He recalls "It just hit me like that, Bang, my brother's a toad, I mean a toad, it just blew me away, I can still hardly believe it." Naturally, David was very distraught at the time, but he still had his wits about him enough to call the Tucson Poison Control Center, to describe the situation. They referred him to the Tucson Police Department (TPD), who had just dealt with a few similar cases in the area. They informed David that his brother had consumed a pill of ecstasy from a batch contaminated with impurities known as bufogens, which were responsible for the dramatic side effects. They also informed him that there was no known treatment for cases like his brother's.

This tragedy was unfortunately not an isolated event. As previously mentioned, there have been a number of other similar occurrences in the Tucson area in the last month. Sgt. Joe Kroger of the TPD would not specify exactly how many other cases he knew of, but only said "There are more than eight". He also commented that a few similar instances have been reported recently in New York, Los Angeles and Des Moines, Iowa. The evidence so far points to one shipment originating from an illicit lab in Vancouver, according to a recent DEA report entitled "Bufogenic Compounds as Contaminants in Canadian Ecstasy Samples." Other information in this report reveals that Canada bears a large share of the blame for the prevalence of Ecstasy in the United States, since most underground labs producing it are located there. The remaining portion comes mainly from Switzerland and the Netherlands, two other countries with liberal drug policies.

Experts are still trying to figure out how the bufogens in this batch of ecstasy achieve such dramatic effects on the human body. Dr. Rick Jode at the University Medical Center (UMC) admits that he is still a bit mystified at how these changes occur, and noted that this really is a new phenomenon that people have not seen before. He emphasized "What the public does not understand is that some impurities in these street drugs activate certain metabolic pathways in the body that essentially turn you into a toad. We've seen it happen now, but how it does that is still anyone's guess, even in the scientific community." He was also quick to point out that previous concerns over the health risks of ecstasy were due to the effects of the drug itself. MDMA, the component in ecstasy responsible for the "high" is notorious for causing jaw clenching, convulsions, depletion of the neurotransmitter serotonin, promiscuity and even death, in some cases. "With contaminated batches such as this one, the risk is even higher", Dr. Jode continued. "While not as common as strychnine, these bufogens could become an increasingly prevalent contaminant in ecstasy, and clearly the effects are devastating"

Other researchers in the University of Arizona department of Chemistry have analyzed some contaminated pills to establish the chemical identity of the impurities. Dr. Linda Lake and her research team found that about ten percent of the weight of the pills contains other chemicals similar to MDMA, short for methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine. One of these new chemicals was found to be 3-bufoxy-methamphetamine. Dr. Lake suspects that this is the one responsible for the dramatic metabolic changes. When asked to speculate how this may happen she demurred, saying "This isn't really my domain. If the neuropharmacologists can't say how it happens I probably couldn't either." When coaxed further, she did briefly mention a colleague in France whose natural products research group had recently isolated similar compounds from the warts of some species of toads. Apparently, this may be responsible for old superstitions that touching a toad could make a person turn into a toad, but Dr. Lake did not want to speculate further on this issue. She and her group are also working on the problem of how a faulty synthesis of the drug could have produced the impurities only in this one instance. "At first we thought it would be something simple, like that famous case with the bad batch of China white, that was due to a shortcut taken on one of the reflux steps. It must be more complicated though, since we haven't figured it out yet."

In the mean time, law enforcement officials and community leaders have their hands full trying to figure out how to handle the problem. Already, concerned parents are meeting to determine a strategy for incorporating this recent development into already existing drug education programs such as DARE. When asked her opinion of the situation, Patricia Amam of the Tucson chapter of Parents Against Medical Marijuana (PAMM) told us "This is just another thing wrong with legitimizing marijuana by legalizing it in any way. Marijuana is well known to lead to curiosity about harder drugs and an increased likelihood to try them. We don't want our children going down that path. We don't want our children turning into toads." She went on to say "Our children need to learn that their choices regarding drugs have consequences, and in this case, no handsome prince is going to come along to kiss you and turn you back."

Randy Rose, former Tucsonan, who is now an officer in the New York Police Department (NYPD) commented on the extent of the problem which has recently surfaced there. He noted several cases that he was personally involved with, describing one particularly dramatic one. "I had just pulled over a car with some suspicious looking people in it, and when I approached them I could smell marijuana smoke coming from the vehicle. They were kind of nervous when they saw me, and admitted to smoking a joint and each of them also had just taken a tablet of ecstasy. Well I took their ID and headed back to my car to check on my computer whether they had any outstanding warrants. It turned out they didn't, so I was going to head back and cite them for marijuana possession. When I got back to the car I didn't see them, but when I looked more closely, I saw there were four toads in their place." It turns out that this case has caused considerable problems in New York, because of the lack of legal precedent. The four toads have been assigned one attorney, David Legler. When reached for comment, he told us "We're not even sure as to the exact legal status of our clients. Of course the obvious communication barrier also makes it difficult to proceed." Police are also not sure what to do with the detained toads, prior to their trial. Rose pointed out, "If we let them go on bond, then they might just hop away, and we'll never hear from them again. On the other hand, we can't really put them in jail pending their trial. Our facilities aren't equipped to handle prisoners of this category. We find ourselves at an impasse as to what to do with them."

Back in Tucson, now, two weeks after the incident, David Pierce is just trying to take life one day at a time. He is committed to caring for his brother in his new form, and he still hopes that the future will hold some hope for treatment of his condition. Of course his life is much more complicated now with this new responsibility. As he commented, "Before, our life was just so simple, but now that's changed. You know now it's like where am I going to find some space in this little apartment to build an indoor pond so he can spawn, you know, where am I going to go and buy some ants for him to eat?"

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