|
|
|
|
Ibogaine
Ibogaine is a slightly psychoactive indole alkaloid derived from the
Tabernathe iboga plant native to Central Africa. In the West,
Ibogaine is usually administered in the form of the
hydrochloride - a fine off-white powder either synthesized or chemically
extracted from the root bark in a laboratory. When administered to persons seeking to beat addiction to heroin,
methadone, cocaine or alcohol, a single dose of Ibogaine typically achieves the
following:
Ibogaine is not itself addictive, and may thus be administered in
monthly or similar doses over a period of time to help preserve a drug-free
state. It should be noted that very few people beat addiction permanently
through the sole use of Ibogaine. However, long-term abstinence is frequently
achieved by combining Ibogaine with a suitable therapy. The discovery that
Ibogaine could block drug withdrawal is usually
credited to Howard S. Lotsof - a New York based former drug user who took Ibogaine
in 1962. Lotsof, then a heroin user, took Ibogaine believing it to be a
new recreational drug. But, 30 hours later, suddenly realized he wasn't
experiencing heroin withdrawal, and had no desire to seek drugs. Subsequent
casual experimentation revealed that this effect was replicated for other heroin
users. In 1991, the US National Institute for Drug Abuse,
(NIDA), impressed by
case-reports and animal studies, began studying Ibogaine with a view to
evaluating its safety and creating treatment protocols. In 1993, the US Food and Drug Administration, (FDA), who oversee the
development of new drugs, approved clinical trials with Ibogaine, to be carried
out by Dr Deborah Mash of the University of Miami School of Medicine, on behalf
of Howard Lotsof's corporation, NDA International. Up to this point, the development of
Ibogaine had been proceeding
smoothly, but suddenly things went sour. The death of a young female heroin
addict during treatment in Holland brought an abrupt end to the Dutch project. A
subsequent inquest did not find the project organizers guilty of negligence. But the lack of scientific knowledge about the effects of
Ibogaine hindered the establishing of the actual cause of death, though it was believed
that she may have surreptitiously smoked opiates during treatment. In March 1995, after several years spent progressively becoming more
interested in Ibogaine, a review committee at NIDA suddenly decided to suspend
further activity with the drug, apparently having been influenced by critical
opinions from pharmaceutical industry representatives. And so, as of October 2000,
Ibogaine remains in a legal nowhere-land,
desperately needed by hundreds of thousands of addicts worldwide, but,
tragically, still little closer to becoming legally available.
|
|
Last updated: 7 October 2004 |
Of the various drugs that have been proposed as being useful in the
treatment of chemical dependence, Ibogaine is almost certainly the one that
would currently seem to offer the greatest real potential.