Frog Poison Origin Story: How Toad Venom Escaped

Before Frog Poison spread through California, Toad Venom passed through an Oklahoma partnership, a disputed genetics transfer, a deliberate clone switch and a recovery mission through Colorado.

The Oklahoma Connection

Around 2021, Toad Venom entered the orbit of Connoisseur Cannabis in Tulsa, an Oklahoma cultivation project involving Jake of Ronin/West Coast Connoisseur and an owner referred to as J (Jeremy).

Jake says West Coast Alchemy, Water Boyz and Kush Klinik whom he and J brought in, contributed money in exchange for equity in the company. Under his account, however, company ownership and genetic ownership were separate.

He says West Coast Connoisseur retained ownership of the genetics brought into the project and licensed them to Connoisseur Cannabis for cultivation and commercial use in Tulsa. In his view, equity in the company did not automatically grant the right to remove, sell or distribute those genetics.

That distinction would later become the center of the dispute.

The Toad Venom Genetics

Toad Venom traces back to an Animal Face × SinMintz selection associated with Derrick and Green Dragon who selected the cut.

The selected plant was known as Becky before Jake and the West Coast Connoisseur/Ronin circle further developed and released it as Toad Venom. Jake places that work around late 2020.

Once the plant entered the Oklahoma project, a larger group helped shape its commercial identity.

Jake credits Hash Tribe, Kush Klinik, the firm, West Coast Alchemy, Water Boyz and others with helping cultivate, process, package and market the material. The genetics may have had a claimed owner, but the commercial project surrounding Toad Venom was collaborative.

The First Melt

According to Chad Lee’s Water Boyz account on the GoodPizza podcast, West Coast Alchemy produced the first Toad Venom rosin release connected to the Oklahoma operation.

The packaging already featured green frog or toad imagery. That matters because the Toad Venom name and visual identity existed before the Detroit Runtz controversy and before Frog Poison became a recognizable California name.

Both sides therefore place Toad Venom before Frog Poison.

Processing Problems

Jake says the conflict did not begin with someone trying to take a clone.

According to his account, tensions developed while the operation was still active. He says West Coast Alchemy repeatedly fell behind processing frozen material, causing inventory to accumulate and forcing the cultivation side to work with additional processors.

Jake says his group eventually decided to move Toad Venom production elsewhere and had also discussed a possible non-exclusive licensing or access deal with a larger company.

He says WCA and Water Boyz knew about that plan and initially congratulated the group despite losing the processing work. This is Jake’s account of the supplier dispute. WCA and Water Boyz frame the later conflict differently.

The Partnership Collapses

The broader Oklahoma venture eventually fell apart amid financial, operational and ownership disputes.

Water Boyz says money was lost in the project and that J later offered genetics as compensation. According to their account, they were given access to a clone list and selected Toad Venom.

From their perspective, the transfer had been authorized by an owner of the Oklahoma company.

Jake disputes that J had authority over the genetics themselves.

His position is that Connoisseur Cannabis did not own the underlying West Coast Connoisseur genetics, meaning J could not legitimately transfer Toad Venom to someone else simply through ownership or control of the company.

Water Boyz’s position is fundamentally different. They say they approached someone they understood to have authority and received permission.

The dispute is therefore not simply about whether someone requested Toad Venom.

It is about who actually had the right to give it away.

Why WCA Went Back to J

Jake believes the processing change helped trigger the confrontation.

He says West Coast Alchemy felt it had played an important role in building Toad Venom and became upset when processing moved elsewhere. According to Jake, WCA and Water Boyz then returned to J seeking the genetics.

West Coast Alchemy and Water Boyz reject the idea that they were stealing genetics or acting out of revenge.

Their version is that they were owed money from the failed venture and were offered genetics as compensation.

The contact with J is part of both stories.

The motive and authority behind it remain disputed.

The Detroit Runtz Switch

Despite the ownership dispute, the competing accounts converge on one critical event:

The first clone distributed as Toad Venom was not Toad Venom. It was Detroit Runtz.

Joey (a cannabis connoisseur grower/employee) later acknowledged intentionally sending Detroit Runtz under the Toad Venom name.

Where the sides disagree is why he did it.

The Joey and Jake Version

Jake says Joey understood the original genetics arrangement and believed Connoisseur Cannabis was licensed to use West Coast Connoisseur genetics, not independently distribute them.

Under that version, the false clone was intentional.

Jake now describes the switch as a smokescreen designed to create uncertainty while his side rebuilt its genetic library and protected backup material outside Oklahoma.

He says they expected the deception to be discovered quickly because Detroit Runtz and Toad Venom were substantially different plants.

Instead, the mislabeled clone traveled much farther than expected.

The Water Boyz and WCA Version

Water Boyz and West Coast Alchemy reject the premise that they were improperly obtaining genetics.

Their account begins with J authorizing Toad Venom as compensation for money owed from the failed project.

From their perspective, Joey was not protecting genetics from an unauthorized transfer. He was ignoring what they believed was a legitimate instruction from an owner.

West Coast Alchemy says it had no idea the clone had been switched.

Believing the plant was authentic, the group propagated it, moved it through its network, flowered it and even produced rosin under the Toad Venom identity.

The deliberate substitution is therefore not the main disagreement.

Joey intentionally sent the wrong plant.

The unresolved question is whether the people requesting Toad Venom had a legitimate right to receive it.

The Fake Toad Spreads

The Detroit Runtz substitution became much larger than anyone apparently expected.

The plant was propagated before its identity was verified and reportedly moved through WCA’s circle to Cut Right and other growers.

Jake says several incorrect Toad Venom cuts circulated during this period, not only Detroit Runtz.

That created a serious provenance problem. A plant could arrive carrying the Toad Venom name without necessarily being the same clone Jake’s group had originally developed.

The Search for the Real Toad

Once West Coast Alchemy concluded the Tulsa material was incorrect, the search continued.

According to WCA, J directed the group toward backup genetics associated with the Oklahoma project that had been stored near Pueblo, Colorado.

The crew flew into Denver and drove south toward a collector reportedly holding hundreds of cultivars. Multiple possible Toad Venom plants surfaced, with at least one proving to be another dead end.

After roughly 30 hours of travel, WCA says it recovered unrooted material it believed was the authentic Toad Venom and began carrying it back toward California.

That identification comes from firsthand accounts.

No genetic test presented in the available material independently establishes that the Colorado plant was identical to the original Toad Venom clone.

Toad Becomes Frog

The material West Coast Alchemy recovered eventually entered the Cut Right and North Bay network.

From there, Frog Poison emerged as the California-facing identity.

Jake agrees that Frog Poison came after Toad Venom.

According to him, the name Frog Poison was deliberately chosen as a play on Toad Venom and a jab connected to the dispute over whether WCA had successfully obtained the real genetics.

The original Toad Venom name and green toad imagery already existed.

Frog Poison became the next chapter.

The Second Wave

Whatever its exact genetic identity, Frog Poison introduced the Toad story to a much larger audience.

West Coast Alchemy, Water Boyz, Bobby, Cut Right and the surrounding California network became a second major wave in the plant’s history.

Jake has acknowledged their impact.

He says Toad Venom itself never became one of Tulsa’s biggest sellers and credits West Coast Alchemy and the California network with doing a much stronger job of building attention around Frog Poison.

That distinction helps separate origin from popularization.

Jake’s circle says it developed and controlled Toad Venom.

WCA and its collaborators helped make the later Frog Poison identity far more visible.

Is Frog Poison Really Toad Venom?

This remains the largest unresolved genetic question.

West Coast Alchemy’s position is that the Colorado recovery produced the authentic Toad Venom clone.

Under that version:

Toad Venom → recovered from Colorado → grown through the California network → renamed Frog Poison.

Others remain more cautious.

Multiple fake Toads had already circulated, different plants had carried the same name and the Colorado recovery relied primarily on provenance and comparison rather than publicly presented genetic verification.

Based on the available firsthand accounts, it cannot be conclusively established whether Frog Poison is:

the identical original Toad Venom clone, a related Toad Venom phenotype, or another plant from the broader genetic population that ultimately inherited the name.

What can be established more confidently is that Frog Poison emerged from the Toad Venom dispute rather than preceding it.

What Both Sides Agree On

Underneath the accusations, several important pieces of the history overlap.

Toad Venom existed before Frog Poison. West Coast Connoisseur/Ronin brought Toad Venom into the Oklahoma project. WCA, Water Boyz, Kush Klinik, Hash Tribe and others contributed to the commercial ecosystem surrounding it. West Coast Alchemy processed early Toad Venom material.

The Oklahoma partnership later collapsed.

WCA and Water Boyz sought Toad Venom through J. Jake disputes J’s authority to transfer it, while Water Boyz says the transfer was authorized. Joey intentionally sent Detroit Runtz labeled as Toad Venom.

WCA says it initially believed that plant was authentic, then later obtained different material through Colorado that it says was the real Toad Venom.

That later material became associated with Frog Poison in California.

The major disagreements concern authority, motive and genetic provenance.

Legacy

The story leaves one lesson that cuts through almost every version:

Flower your clones before distributing them.

The Detroit Runtz episode shows how quickly provenance can collapse when a trusted label replaces actual verification.

WCA believed it had Toad Venom. The plant was propagated, processed and shared before the mistake became clear. By then, the consequences had already reached gardens outside the original dispute.

Whatever side of the ownership argument someone accepts, the larger history remains.

Toad Venom began as a specific plant connected to a specific group. The collapse of the Oklahoma project fractured that chain of custody. Detroit Runtz became a fake Toad. A Colorado recovery became Frog Poison. California turned that name into something far larger than the original Oklahoma release.

The remaining questions are no longer whether the clone switch happened.

They are who had the right to Toad Venom, whether the Colorado recovery was truly the original plant, and exactly where Toad Venom story ends and the Frog Poison story begins.