Book Exposes Toad Psychedelic Guru's Dark Secrets
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- The Ego Trip by Kimon de Greef investigates physician Octavio Rettig Hinojosa, who popularized 5-MeO-DMT from Sonoran desert toads as a treatment for addiction and trauma, claiming it reveals 'new planes of enlightenment.'
- Rettig Hinojosa framed the drug as an ancient practice of the Seri people of Sonora, Mexico, but de Greef argues this is a modern invention with no evidence; many Seri have since asked him to stop using their name.
- De Greef documents alleged incidents including Rettig Hinojosa wrestling a customer to administer more of the drug, angrily commanding a 14-year-old boy to take another hit, and pushing a bleeding, mud-covered woman into a swimming pool with his foot.
- De Greef admits Rettig Hinojosa tricked him into taking psychedelics while reporting, after falsely telling him the substance was essential oil.
- Toad poaching for natural 5-MeO-DMT involves disturbing the animals and often child labor; de Greef joined an expedition with a teenager whose brothers are among Mexico's 100,000 forcibly disappeared people — the boy 'searches for bodies by day, toads by night.'
- 5-MeO-DMT remains illegal in the US and UK, though clinical trials have shown promising results for treatment-resistant depression; its 15-minute duration makes it potentially cheaper to roll out than psilocybin's 6-hour trips.
Why it matters: The book challenges the cultural legitimacy of a buzzy psychedelic at the moment clinical interest is surging — de Greef argues the 'ancient Indigenous sacrament' narrative is a modern fabrication by one charismatic doctor, while documenting alleged physical abuse of patients. For researchers and investors betting on 5-MeO-DMT as a faster, cheaper alternative to psilocybin, the book raises unresolved safety and ethics questions that the drug's illegality in the US and UK has so far kept out of regulators' view.
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