Frog medicine has now become part of the commercial shamanic activity on the Internet.
Personally I find it rather unsettling to see animal venom being traded alongside research chemicals and all the other psychedelic paraphernalia .

I would question the motives behind this trade and its promoters, rather than altruism I suspect the reasons have more to do with ego and money.

Genuine seekers will find a way if that is their path, taking the journey to South America would at least demonstrate some commitment. Making it available at Kambo workshops in California will attract thrill seekers and those looking for a new buzz.

One can't help but feel sorry for the frog and its magic.

To be fair he is talking about a session with a currandero.

Unless you personally know the currandero to be only profit seeking, there is no reason to bash his thread and compare it to trading animal venom with research chemicals.

I question the motives behind your post

Anyone with $60 can purchase it from the "Curranderos'" web site shopping cart.

^uhh are you talking about ?..as far as I know that site is owned the same guy who owns Maya..and it is not this guy.

Well that's a coincidence then, Giovanni Lattanzi has an article advertising his Kambo services on same web site that supplies bulk commercial quantities of frog venom, and both of them in the Netherlands.

Yes, Maurice in the NL owns maya and has sister sites, kambo.nu being one of them as far as I know. He is very much into traditional ayahuasca ceremonies it seems and other traditional medicines so it is not really hard ti understand why he would support this guy who works with kambo.

He does not sell it because of his principals but the people he is associated with sell it in large amounts for large sums of money.

He's taking it on tour to the USA so that is going to create more demand which presumably his friend at Maya will be happy to supply.

Frogs are about to become big business, the people who are promoting this can call themselves curranderos and claim their medicine is sacred, but in practice they are running an import export business selling sensitive rainforest animal product. I hope they have a license to export this stuff.

How many frogs does it take to produce a stick of kambo, and how are the animals captured and treated when collecting the medicine? Where there are animal products and money there is usually cruelty somewhere in the supply chain. They may only be small frogs but they are sentient creatures that deserve respect.

Taking this potent medicine out of Peru is going to end badly, someone is going to get hurt and the frog is going to suffer because a few people want to make a name for themselves and make a lot of money at the same time.

Why does a hunting medicine need to leave the rainforest? Before long the frog will become an endangered species and the Kambo will be outlawed, its a predicable cycle fueled by greed on the pretext of being sacred, the worst kind of hypocrisy.

Save your prayers for the frog.


6

I have often wondered about how moral this whole kambo thing is as well to be honest..it has kept me from working with it at the moment. I dont eat animals and I dont support factory farming so I am VERY weary when it comes to something like kambo being made available on an open online market.

The frogs are not killed when kambo or sapo is collected. Traditionally it is extremely taboo from what i understand to actaully harm the frogs etc..they are concidered sacred beings. The frogs are let go after.

I do have a hard time beleiving that all of the kambo on the market is done that way. Take a look at how iboga has been treated, this is a perfect example of why we should be cautious about these things and question the source and motivation behind it.

Maya is usually very good about this sort of thing. IMO Maurice is an honerable vendor and I would hope he makes sure that all the kambo being sold through the site is 100% ethically harvested and that these frogs are treated with the greastes respect. He has not given us any reason to doubt him so you slandering his name like this is sort of uncalled for. It is fine to question but you are jumping to conclusions.

EDIT: be nice to frogs

Your post is out of place once again. What are you expecting to be the answer to your post? What do you think is more likely, that he says "oh im sorry, Ill change everything now and give up on kambo, please dont threaten me", or that this generates an emotional response from him and changes nothing in his actions, maybe even losing the chance of making him reasonably consider the potential unsustainability of kambo because he will shut down to you ?

You are losing the opportunity to level-headedly talk about it in a thread that has been created by traveler out of the discussion in the other thread, so that maybe we all can learn from it. You are posting in a way that will just degenerate the atmosphere, making acusations and coming with your absolute prediction of the future and prejudging people, plus adding threats to it.

I hope this is the last post from you with this kind of tone, and that you rethink about how you just posted. I would hope also that this thread can be used positively to question about a very relevant subject, and that kambogahuasca understands the importance of honestly considering the potential negative aspects of international promotion and large scale use of kambo

numbersix,

You clearly missed this post from endlessness:



Please read this well and act accordingly.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

thanx, I'm up to speed now on what's has transpired.

6

Just wondering. Do most vendors give disclaimer on how their sources catch their frogs? There seems to be specific rituals involved in the hunt for the kambo containing phyllomedusa frog. If they aren't using tribal sources couldn't others be catching in an unsustainable manor w/ capitILL intent, do you think that would be spiritually beneficial or rather the reverse?

"If Kambo became a fad in the psychedelic community those beautiful little phyllomedusa frogs would surely become extinct. They are already on IUCN Red List for threatened species..."

This is alarming..I have often wondered how sustainable this whole kambo thing is. Personally I find it hard to believe that it is all being done ethically..when money and outside interests are involved things tend to go south. The fact that they are now a threatened species is enough to seriously question the growing use of kambo outside of the amazon.

Maybe someone should try to synthesize kambo.

?

Thanks for replying with this info. Im not sure I believe in sorcerers spells anymore than the tooth fairy but its interesting to read your experiences with the calming effects of using this substance with aya.

Id have to agree with Jaime in questioning the impact on the envirement harvesting Kambo. Even if you have traveled to the Amazon and observed the Matses there isn't a way fro you to know if they arent over hunting these amphibians. WE like to think of indigenous people always in positive green light leaving no negative impacts on their enviroment but I have seen this not to be the case with many of them with my own eye's.

I have seen native groups in the rain forest who's ancestors love and revere even worship the powerful jaguar but hunt them dead mother and cubs just to sell the teeth and hide to pathetic touristas for about 75$ U.S.. This disgusting practice is one of many and is not uncommon. When I politely questioned these men why they were doing this they kept trying to assure me the animals, yes not just one, had died naturally! I saw this all around the Amazon.

If your BUYING these products from the Matses then they want or need money. If they need money trust me they don't have many ways to make it so in this case it is highly likely environmental protection isn't even a second thought to them.

I urge you to seriously take a long think about what Im saying if you truly love and respect these creatures and this medicine. Look into what the African Pygmes are doing in the Congo jungles to make a buck. SLAUGHTERING Everything that moves in order to sell the meat to the very men clear cutting the forest for logging. There are countless examples I could give of indigenous people destroying their ecosystem for modern amenities. No not all of coarse but our demands for these products creates the destruction.

As of 2010, Phyllomedusa bicolor is listed as "least concern" on the IUCN Redlist site



There are other Phyllomedusa sp. that are endangered but from the looks of it this one is doing fine. For now anyway....

The questions of how ethically these medicines are being harvested and whether this stuff should even be making it's way out of the rainforest into the hands of everyone with a credit card and an internet connection are still very valid and should be discussed further imo.

^ what I got out of that was that it takes some work to harvest just one stick of Kambo..and that there are people who are NOT doing it the way that he has described. I dunno how much Kambo can be collected for a larger world market in this way..they must have many many people out there harvesting it every day like that to be supplying all those sticks of it at that quality. Maybe most of it is being done that way I cant really say. I wish I could find a source that could guarantee that it is being done this way but for now I dont know what to think.