“There have been some complaints, but they're always because of an underlying condition. So it’s not the medicine,” he said. Hietaluoma added that God-mode is the goal of each session: “If the client doesn't lose the notion of time and space completely, I consider it too low a dose.” Clients are advised on the importance of careful integration upon booking, and he and his staff are available around the clock to answer any future questions and address any concerns, he said.
However, Hietaluoma acknowledged that “if they don't have these few days for integration, and they have to go back to their toxic lives and work, it can be very stressful and cause anxiety.”
Peer-reviewed information about the consequences of bufo use remains relatively scarce in the absence of a clinical study. Trials are ongoing and were recently boosted by a $110m funding injection. But psychedelic therapy experts have warned that bufo should only be used carefully and that if people get dosed too high, they can “white out” and dissociate from their mind and body.
They stress the importance of participants having a couple of days afterward to relax and gently integrate their experiences with all-encompassing support in the same environment as which they smoked the bufo and for them to be thoroughly assessed beforehand. Many people will simply not be ready for the earth-shattering trip, which is completely legal in Mexico.
Neo-shamans in Tulum and elsewhere are increasingly marketing bufo after its discovery in the glands of toads during the latter half of the 20th century. Rapidly increasing global as well as local demand is raising concerns over toad conservation in northwestern Mexico, 3,500 km away in their desert habitat.
“It's becoming a bigger trend every day,” Hietaluoma said, before referring to the potential of bufo as “the solution” to the world’s issues.
Many attest to life-changing illuminating and breakthrough trips, including U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, former boxer Mike Tyson, and TV personality Christina Haack. At the hotel, testimonials of satisfied customers adorn the walls of the center’s reception. Movie star Jim Carrey (it is not believed he was referring to bufo) is quoted as saying, “Suddenly I was thrown into this expanding amazing feeling of freedom.” Podcast host Joe Rogan compares the use of bufo to “the equivalent of 15 years of psychotherapy.” Hotel owner Fernando Carillo, a renowned Venezuelan actor, claims, “You are not perfect, yet DMT can fix you.”
After the Irish couple smoked 100 mg each, a potentially dangerous so-called God-mode dose, Charlotte echoed other testimonies and said she would have regretted not trying bufo. They exit the teepee within an hour, and are free to do as they wish. They are advised to head to a beach cafe 30 minutes away on foot.
A week after their ceremony, the couple said they were feeling well but that Charlotte had endured days of severe distress. “I couldn’t deal with everything that was going on around me and didn’t know how to react to how I was feeling,” she said. Vivid nightmares where cockroaches swarmed over her neck, causing her to scratch herself so much it hurt, haunted her and she feared she would never return to a balanced emotional and mental state.
But as the comedown trailed off, she began to observe positive changes, too. “I used to think about things way too much, but now I am way more laid-back,” she said.
The couple were split on their opinions of the hotel. “It’s heavily branded. I don’t see it as a true sanctuary,” said Charlotte’s boyfriend Josh, an electrician who had a less powerful experience. “It’s, ‘Come in and take this DMT for this money and then go home.’ I don’t think it’s a spiritual sanctuary.”
Large parts of the bufo community also take a dim view of the hotel, along with the marauding healers who approach travelers in Tulum, including on the beach, offering bufo. “We can do it at dawn so you have the whole day to relax on the beach,” one said.
Another speed-toading critic, David Gallegos, a California therapist who claims to have often been a lone voice at the World Bufo Alvarius Conference (WBAC) regarding the importance of integration, bases his practice on helping people return to better mental health after psychedelic experiences.
He said three of his patients came to him following ceremonies at the hotel, which he claims can cause people damage and precipitate psychosis, insomnia, and paranoia.
“I'm seeing the mental-health side of things, and it's going really dark very fast,” Gallegos said. “I have to put up the beware sign about ‘Dr Alvarius.’ His name has come up with clients who have experienced paranoia at least minimally for a whole month afterwards. People are not sleeping after having their ego wiped out with such high doses.”
Urging bufo not to be taken without a proper safety protocol set up between the participant, facilitator, and a therapist beforehand, he added: “They come to me saying, ‘All I want from you is to feel normal again. I want to feel grounded again.’”
But bufo is generally safe and can bring about transformative and positive benefits where other treatments may have failed, said Rak Razam, a key figure in the bufo community who is editor-in-chief of self-help news website reset.me and co-organiser of the WBAC, which last took place in Mexico City in 2020. But, he cautioned, “there are some health screening issues and reasons why some people are incompatible with it, such as heart problems, extremely high or low blood pressure, and the taking of antidepressants.”
“Also, for people with other underlying issues like bipolar disorder and depression, the medicine must be approached with great care and reverence: It can be the single most profound experience of a person’s life, which is really why it is not to be rushed.” He added that there are organizations like the Conclave, which provide guidelines for practitioners and clients.
“The reverberations will continue to work within you and through you. People have to make sure it’s the right time for them, and that they have enough space in their life to digest the experience and make whatever changes or course corrections are needed … It’s not something to tick off the bucket list, like a bungee jump or a cruise,” said Razam.
But, he added, “It can be life-changing.”