It's not hard to come by kambo, if you're looking for it.

Podcast The Signal Why are people using frog poison? There's a growing underground community in Australia that uses a substance called Kambo - a psychoactive tree frog poison from the Amazon - as an alternative medicine. About

About Subscribe

Subscribe RSS Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen More great ABC podcasts

There's a growing underground community in Australia that uses the substance, a psychoactive tree frog poison from the Amazon, as an alternative medicine.

It's administered during a ceremony at gatherings known as "kambo circles", by applying the poison to superficial burns on the skin.

Not long after, those who have used it will experience violent vomiting and sometimes diarrhoea.

Kambo users also report feeling emotional during that time, although there's no euphoric high or hallucinogenic quality to the experience.

Repeat users of the substance claim they experience a boost to their energy and mental clarity in the days and weeks afterwards.

Some personify the medicine as a frog spirit, and believe it's capable of treating addiction, depression, and a range of serious illnesses.

"People will contact me with the most amazing stories and experiences that they've had," Debbie Lanyon, who administers kambo, told The Signal.

Debbie Lanyon hosts a Kambo circle in Newtown, Sydney. ( ABC News: Angela Lavoipierre )

Ms Lanyon runs kambo circles in Sydney and Brisbane, and charges about $175 a head for each participant.

"They'll wake up one day and they just don't want to drink alcohol anymore or they just stop smoking," she said.

"Anxiety that people didn't realise that they were living with — they're just now more free.

"You never know what the medicine is going to work on."

Martin Williams, a post doctoral research fellow at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, said the science behind the obvious effects of kambo — such as vomiting and diarrhoea — was relatively straightforward.

"The frog [secretes] a whole range of peptides, small chemical compounds, which have a range of different effects," he said.

"They seem to synergise to give a strong physiological response when the peptides are introduced into the body."

As for kambo's supposed curative effects, including for depression, he said there wasn't scientific evidence to support the claims.

"Unfortunately there's really no way of saying at this stage how much or how little of that is true," he said.

He said people who took kambo as a medicine seemed motivated to get better, which might play a role in how much they believed it helped them.

"That in itself, that motivation, constitutes a pretty strong effect in many people," he said.

But he said there were several recorded cases of people becoming severely ill after taking it.

As a part of many kambo rituals, participants are told to fast, but drink large amounts of water to help with the "purging" process.

Ms Lanyon requests that people drink two litres of water, but one case Dr Williams refers to involves a woman who drank four times that amount.

"There's one particular case … [a woman] drank eight litres of water in pretty short order, and she suffered a condition called hyponatremia, and she was hospitalised for about a week," he said.

"In another documented case, someone vomited 50 times within a couple of hours, and there's one published case where a person died.

"Although it's not absolutely certain that the kambo was responsible for that," he added.

What happens at a Kambo circle?

Equipment laid out for a Kambo circle ceremony. ( ABC News: Angela Lavoipierre )

At a studio space at Newtown in Sydney's inner west, Ms Lanyon is setting up for a kambo circle of about eight people.

There's soft music playing, the air smells like frankincense, and at the front of the room is a little altar of sorts, with musical instruments and oils.

There are also two stations with all the necessary equipment to administer the kambo, replete was a little glass frog for ornamental purposes.

There's also a pot of soup simmering on a portable stove, to feed everyone after the ceremony is over.

Ms Lanyon has screened them ahead of time with a questionnaire and an in-depth conversation about their medical history.

"If people have certain conditions, they can't sit," she said.

"I need to know what medications people are on, even down to minerals and vitamin supplements.

She's also trying to weed out candidates who may be doing it for "the wrong reasons".

"One that would spring to mind straight away is someone who had maybe anorexia or bulimia and they like that purge," she said.

"There are occasionally people who just want to do it to tick it off their bucket list, and I'm not really interested in that so I'll refer them on.

"It is a medicine, and it should be treated as such."

In the next room, all the people who've paid to take part are arriving.

All but one of them are repeat customers.

Everyone wears comfy clothes like yoga pants and each person has brought a bucket from home.

Some of them have blankets and a pillow for when then need to rest after their "purge".

Dr Martin Williams says there's no scientific evidence to support kambo's supposed curative effects. ( Facebook: Viva Kambo )

They're excited about what's to come, and they chat about other rituals and healing ceremonies they've tried — things like fasting or ayahuasca.

Some already know each other.

When it's time to go in, everyone sits in a circle.

Ms Lanyon explains some of the practical aspects of what will follow, and says a prayer.

The group is encouraged to shout "Viva!" when one of them vomits, to celebrate the "purge" — the theory being that the person vomiting is ridding themselves of spiritual or emotional baggage.

They're warned that some people may faint, and that's why they should go to the toilet in pairs.

"And just know at the end we'll all be sitting in a circle, sharing fruit and soup and a cup of tea, and you will feel magical tomorrow," she said.

Ms Lanyon uses kambo regularly herself, after she "fell in love" with it the first time.

"I can't explain it. No-one who works with the medicine can really explain it. It's just magic," she said.

She admits the process, particularly for the inexperienced, can be panic-inducing.

"I actually thought I was going to die and I thought 'what the hell am I doing here?'" she said, remembering her own first experience.

Kambo first timer: 'What have I done?'

The only first timer in the group is 40-year-old Anthony.

He has a corporate job in Sydney and chose not to provide his surname.

"I haven't done any drugs, ever. I've come from a very heavy sporting background," he said.

"I know the connotations associated with things like this, but I assure you I'm actually very down to earth".

Anthony has a specific goal in mind for taking kambo.

Speaking before the ceremony, he told The Signal: "I've had depression for 13 years now. I'm looking for something that will help me in a natural way."

Kambo ceremony participants are encouraged to wear comfy clothes and bring a bucket from home.

The following morning, he said he had the toughest time of anyone in the group.

"It's like having the flu and food poisoning, and times it by a hundred," he said.

"I even passed out at one point … I was saying to myself, what have I done? What have I got myself into?"

Despite that, he's not ruling out doing it again in the future.

"If you asked me last night I would have said no, but there's this air of … I'm feeling a lot more refreshed," he said.

"I know when I purged, there's still a little bit left there."

A growing underground community

Ms Lanyon has charted an increase in interest in kambo use in recent years, but says "there are a lot of practitioners, so it's not busier".

The people leading these ceremonies are called "kambo practitioners", some independent and others trained by organisations like the International Association of Kambo Practitioners (IAKP), which lists 34 accredited practitioners in Australia alone.

As for its legal status, Ms Lanyon said it was essentially not on the radar for law enforcement.

One man applies kambo to another man's arm in an outdoor ceremony. ( Facebook: Viva Kambo )

"It's not illegal, it doesn't have any DMT or hallucinogenic properties," she said.

Dr Williams said: "It's a very underground movement, for understandable reasons."

As with many kinds of alternative medicine, Dr Williams said, those who administer kambo make up an industry with a financial interest in the reputation of the substance.

"Quite a lot of people probably have a fairly strong vested and commercial interest in maintaining some of that mystique," he said.

He wants to see more research into kambo and its effects.

"There isn't a great deal of published information about it — there's plenty online, but a lot of that would be anecdotal," he said.