Fighting Drugs With Drugs: An Obscure Hallucinogen Gains Legitimacy as a Solution for Addictions

I hope the sound of promice this article has, proves to be real, It would be great news for many families with addiction issues.

wait, we spend about $180,000 per addict every year? I want the government to be giving me that kinda money for a self inflicted problem...

But will it work on my World of Warcratf addiction?

i think psychedelics have a bad rap sometimes, many reputable scientists say drugs, such as LSD may help people with emotional problems, trauma victims, as well as increasing creativity, not to mention the spiritual aspect of psychedelics

I am pleasantly surprised to see this article. I had just seen a documentary at Michael Moore`s theater up in Traverse City Michigan, it was all about this drug and it followed a man named Dimitri who would help out addicts using this stuff. The film was very powerful it is called "I'm Dangerous with Love" Thanks POPSCI for the info.

@qubixrube - $181K per person? I think your calculator is broken. That's only about $25K per year, which is still FAR too much.

Too bad the conservatives are so blind about drugs that they ban anything they don't understand without letting some real research go on. Thing is, drugs like marijuana and LSD are difficult to research because they are classified as having no medicinal value, so it is very difficult to get research grants to study their medicinal effects. How do you know if something has no medicinal value if you don't study it first? Someone really needs to update these archaic and outdated drug laws.
Man, I hope this study in Mexico has positive results. It would be great to give people a way to get off opiates. Let's hope our government finallys wakes the heck up and does some real research instead of wasting our money on this lost cause "war against drugs."

This is great, now we can take these addicting drugs without the fear of becoming addicted.

It is ridiculous that something already in use in Europe should take 10-15 years to gain approval in the US! Everyone at the FDA should be fired. If this drug really does stop withdrawal symptoms and addiction cravings, it would provide huge benefits to thousands of people. Even if its use has risks, the risk must be less than the risk of continuing heroin use!

The reason it takes 10-15 years to approve a drug is because of liability. Americans are sue happy. If a drug is approved too hastily, then if/when there is a problem down the road there will be billions in lawsuits. The doctors will be sued, the pharmacy will be sued, the drug manufacture will be sued, the government will be sued. We Americans will complain when we have to wait for the drug, but then sue when we get it.

Why pay $5000.00 for treatment that cost about $350.00 a gram which is what you need. This bitch is ripping people off. I know a guy that does treatments in T.J. for half that and he uses the real stuff 98% HCL Ibogaine. Not that 15% - 85% crap that Clair uses. I hate it when I see people just jump in and think they can Rip people off when they are down on their luck. email ibostart@yahoo.com he is the real deal and will put you on a plan before you can take ibogaine, unlike this bitch who is just out to make a buck off people who are vulnerable.

umm..... Timothy Leary proposed this idea decades ago and got thrown in jail because it WORKED. DECADES AGO!!! He did trials with prisoners and rehabilitation. He got a 90% success rate. Where as traditional got about a 10% success rate. That is when they arrested him and through away the key.

The information in this article is inaccurate. From what I have been told, Dr. Mash's ibogaine clinic in St Kitts has been closed for years.

Regarding Pangea Biomedics there are numerous reports reflecting poor care, frequent delays in treatment, chronic underdosing as well as psychiatric diagnoses delivered by the owner (Clare Wilkins) who has no medical or psychotherapeutic training or credentials.

As well, there have been documented incidents of patients engaging in covert, illicit drug use while at the clinic. More disturbing still are the stories of rampant drug taking by staff members, (including or especially by the clinic owner).

Despite the increasingly poor reputation, some organizations continue to hold Pangeas' owner in high regard as some sort of trailblazer in the world of ibogaine therapy. Curious, but true

The clinic owner is Clare Wilkins

Didn't I see this in an episode of House MD?

Disappointing to hear the negative comments re a clinic with such an otherwise stellar reputation. Are these factual or just rumor? I guess it is very important to carefully research who is best qualified to administer such a treatment.

The politicians are in the drug business . They will be upset if this works

The human male facial skin surface lipid kissing pheromone is doubtless more potent (a single oral administration of 150 mg on chewing gum vehicle cures drug addiction altogether), and certainly more widely available. See:
Nicholson Bubba (2009). OF LOVE Kisses pass epigenetic pheromones Amazon Digital Services ASIN: B0030MIG24

Jealousy is not some mental construct uniquely evolved for human beings. Jealousy is perception of a rival's pheromone, and thus, it is shared experience with all animals.
Love is not some fresh idea felt exclusively by human beings and higher primates. Love is mate-specific and offspring-specific pheromone perception that stimulates addictive reward. Criminal behavior is due to a simple paternal pheromone deficiency and so is drug addiction. Both are completely curable now. This book is all you need.
Homosexuality can be reversed into heterosexuality (and presumably vice versa) with administration of less than a gram of a human adult male facial skin surface lipid 'kissing' pheromone, p.o.
Runaway behavior in young teens is an innocent biological response to a pheromone deficiency, also now easily and permanently cureable.
The paradigm shift leaves out psychologists, sociologists, criminologists, so-called neuroscientists, and anyone that believes untestable "explanations". Bad thinking does not cause disease.
Here, in this book, psychology dies.

The human male facial skin surface lipid kissing pheromone is doubtless more potent (a single oral administration of 150 mg on chewing gum vehicle cures drug addiction altogether), and certainly more widely available. See:
Nicholson Bubba (2009). OF LOVE Kisses pass epigenetic pheromones Amazon Digital Services ASIN: B0030MIG24

Jealousy is not some mental construct uniquely evolved for human beings. Jealousy is perception of a rival's pheromone, and thus, it is shared experience with all animals.
Love is not some fresh idea felt exclusively by human beings and higher primates. Love is mate-specific and offspring-specific pheromone perception that stimulates addictive reward. Criminal behavior is due to a simple paternal pheromone deficiency and so is drug addiction. Both are completely curable now. This book is all you need.
Homosexuality can be reversed into heterosexuality (and presumably vice versa) with administration of less than a gram of a human adult male facial skin surface lipid 'kissing' pheromone, p.o.
Runaway behavior in young teens is an innocent biological response to a pheromone deficiency, also now easily and permanently cureable.
The paradigm shift leaves out psychologists, sociologists, criminologists, so-called neuroscientists, and anyone that believes untestable "explanations". Bad thinking does not cause disease.
Here, in this book, psychology dies.

This has been around, and legal in Europe for over thirty years, do you really think we will ever see it legal in this country? razgriz3 shows us the reason why, just like a cure for aids will give people liscence to be promiscuous.

The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 was pushed by the Nixon administration and was a radical departure from the previous legal means to outlaw specific substances. Prior drug legal status precedent was based, in part, on the Declaration of Independence's inalienable right to "the pursuit of happiness" and availabe scientic research. Nixon blamed the use of psychedelics for '60's changes of family values and the "un-american" protests against the Vietnam war. The CSA of 1970 allows Congress to ban a substance without any factual scientific basis. Nixon's paranoia led to his resignation over lying about Watergate but that same paranoia lives on today in the USA's drug policy.

Actually, it may turn out that this drug works like other hallucinogenic agents such as ketamine. These are NMDA receptor antagonists that seem to have an impact on pain mediators such as Substance P. When given these drugs, narcotic dependency is markedly reduced. If the patient does not reduce the amount of narcotics they are using, overdose can easily result.

Actually, ibogaine has the distinction of stopping withdrawal symptoms altogether, as far as I know, it is the only substance with this ability. Ketamine an entirely different experience and effect, would seem impractical to use for opiate withdrawal.

How ibogaine rids the patient of what is typically ten days of agonizing physical symptoms in just twenty four hours is nothing short of miraculous.

Ketamine is a dissociative drug, not really a hallucinogenic per say. The "kids" today may like the stuff and think they are being enlightened, but they know not.

This drug indeed probably works just as explained like other hallucinogenic plants as far as the psychological aspect. Whether it binds with opiate receptors is unknown as they said.

Legalize drugs and produce them on an industrial scale. A pound costs cents. Trafficking will cease immediately and the addicts will disappear pretty soon.
Further, $ 4,000 per treatment? Typically the American way to abuse sick people. Subhuman and callous are the keywords here.
How the drug works doesn't matter. Nobody knows how anaestesia works, yet it is being used effectivly thousands of times every day all over the world.

Thats the problem with all the liberals in this country.. they see some potential for harm and addiction to "drugs" and they lay down a blanket ban on any research or use, because they're so smart, with their fancy college degrees, that they know whats best for everyone in the world without doing any of their own research or letting people decide whats best for themselves.

So now we have an environment where the drugs that are highly punishable to have by law, and are considered schedule 1 with no medical value and high risk of addiction, are the drugs that originally became popular because of their immense potential for healing and health benefits (as well as being fun and harmless).

Drugs have been given such a bad name in this country for no good reason, and whats a real shame is that these drugs that are extremely powerful and actually work at doing what they're supposed to are illegal, while half the country is prescribed to anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications that have been scientifically proven to work no better than placebo's. We spend millions of dollars prescribing people to drugs that are mostly useless, while we could solve people's depression and anxiety healthily and easily with the drugs that are known to work and work well, namely THC, LSD, MDMA etc.

Its funny how in this country we treat ibogaine as something new that needs to be researched, because anybody who's into anthropology and knows about drugs and drug research would know that this is a drug that has been popular for thousands of years in south america, where there's been research being conducted on it since the mid 1900's.

Hey any news that gets people thinking about legalizing drugs in this country is good news.

I am a conservative and a christian, but I definately think we should be testing this drug. I wonder if it works for crystal-meth addicts.

I also think its ridiculous to pay cops to fly around in helicopters looking for marijuana. Legalize, tax, and control it like alcohol. I'm much more concerned about Crystal-meth, heroin and other drugs than than marijuana.

As far as LSD goes I recently watched a (Discovery Channels) show about LSD that was quite interesting. When it was first discovered it was tried in a lot of different situations including a company that let its engineers use it when they came up against a problem that they couldn't figure out. They said there were a lot of patents that resulted.

LSD also seems to be very effective for sufferers of crippling cluster headaches. They said in the show that it was possible to make LSD that didn't create hallucinations yet still worked for the headaches. Unfortunately since it was still "LSD" it was still illegal.

God(or evolution if you are so bent) gave us brains to use them. How many people have to suffer because conservatives and christians don't think critically.

I find the blatant smear campaigns of Pangea above sad and inaccurate. Spreading allegations about the care and personal conduct of people is distasteful and just brings us all down. If you have criticisms of how the clinic runs how about addressing them with Claire instead of ranting about her on the internet? She is open to advice and has a commitment to growth against all odds that is unparalleled in my opinion. Have you even been to Pangea concernedcitizen? It doesn't sound like it. Or are you just spouting off allegations secondhand? If we started listing criticisms about all of the Ibogaine providers out there we could write a book. That is not the point. Getting Iboga to people who need it safely while helping people rebuild their lives is the point.
"Delays in treatment," "under dosing," and not using the real "HCL." These allegations all actually show me a provider who is making sure the client is stabilized safely and not getting walloped with a ton of heart stressing HCL all at once. The total plant extract is more rich in it's visionary effect and safer just like any other plant medicine is in its whole form. So it concerns you that she has no medical or psychiatric training and she is diagnosing people? My guess is that she is probably doing no more than the obvious dx that underlie most addictions. Pulling herself out of opiate addiction and giving back the gift she has been given by Ibogaine is a whole lot more useful than an MD degree in my opinion. She has natural counseling skills and gives more to people in their darkest hours than any other "professional" I know.
Illicit drug use by patients? Shocking! Addicts covertly using drugs! GASP!It is certainly not tolerated when discovered from what I have seen. "Illicit" drug use by the staff and owner herself! That is a total exaggeration. Ever heard of harm reduction? This of course is just another example of maligning "drugs." It is peoples choice what they put in their bodies. We just arbitrarily say that some are okay and some are not depending on politics and money. People should have the right to use drugs and also the freedom not to. That is the beauty of Ibogaine. It gives you that choice again. Spare us all the puritanical bullshit.
Lets please stop nit picking and throwing allegations at a woman who is learning on the job and gives everything to her clients. Why not have a conversation with her about your concerns if you value this medicine? That is how Ibogaine will rise up out of its obscure shadows and become a widespread cutting edge spiritual and scientific modality like it deserves to be. We all get bogged down with exaggerated malicious complaints.
Whoever posted about people getting ripped off by the price of the treatment is ignorant. Have you looked into the cost of traditional detox centers in the states? It is actually a deal and no one is getting rich off of Ibogaine treatments. You get a whole hell of a lot more at Pangea than 350 dollars worth of HCL could give you. It is so easy to call a strong woman a "bitch" and spread rumors. People have gotten their lives back because of her and few people work as hard on behalf of the medicine as she does. More love and support people come on!

From the following Statement:
"Until then, desperate patients will continue to seek out treatment in unregulated places such as Mexico, and that’s ideal for neither the patients nor the researchers"

Saying "Unregulated places such as Mexico" adds to the stereotype that Mexico is unsafe and chaotic. Giving the benefit of the doubt to the statement, and applying it to the article, it should say "Non-FDA-Regulated places such as Mexico". Who has it's own agency called "Secretaria de Salud" (salud.gob.mx)

Either way, Bieng FDA regulated doesn't mean it's safe. I personally have more trust in a sealed Bayer or Schering Plough box from a mexican pharmacy than an unsealed yellow bottle from Rite-Aid containing some pills that we hope come from the correct box.

Either way, Great article!

Ibogaine works for addiction. Great site for information is Eric Taub's site: www.ibeginagain.org. Site has links for legal treatment centers outside the US.

This has been known in Europe and africa for a long time. The drug itself is cheap.

It makes you nauseous when you first take it, so you can't eat before you do. It keeps you awake for four days, and in that time you see your life pass before you, except that you view it as an outside observer.

In certain african rituals, you may visualise going to heaven and meeting people there. In others, you may visualise going to "The Village of the Dead," in which you meet your deceased ancestors.

It is said not only to cure narcotic addiction, but neurosis as well.

Too bad the writer has o open with the shallow false irony of his own opinion. Sounds pretty sophomoric. Contrary to the notion expressed above ,it has not taken 10 15 years to test Iboga because the US is lawsuit happy,it has taken almost 45 years.When LSD was made illegal almost all research into psychedelics was halted. There is a constellation of reasons,which include various culturally imprinted Calvinist fears,need for central control ,and some have suggested that elements which profit from illegal drugs effect policy too.

Robert1234: Drugs are such big business and politicians get so many rewards from the anti-drug position, this will never be approved for use in the U.S. Both political parties are pro-drug gangs because it brings in campaign contributions. Curing the drug problem would cure the prison problem, one of the nation's largest and fastest growing businesses. If you politician in "hard on crime" then he's part of the problem. We need politicians that are "smart" on crime and willing to kill the drug gangs by treatment and making drugs legal.

ibogaine worked for my 17 year opiate (Fentanyl) dependency after breaking my back at age 21. I spent about $7,000 a year on patches, pain doc visits, supplies and more. It wasn't until recently that a pain doctor planted the seed that my back was healed many years ago and that I was chemically dependent - a radical shift of thought.

My treatment was $5,800 in Mexico and it was worth it and more! Rehab is way more expensive and may or may not be effective. Knowing what I know now, I would have sold my car and mortgaged my property to have this new lease on life.

I like to stay positive = Claire is doing her best to help those of us who need it. All clinics are helping- whether you agree with the overall running of the operation or not - Ibogaine works and should be more well known.

Everyone at my clinic, Awakening In the Dream House, were AMAZING people trying to help others. All is well, live in the now and be grateful for what we get to do each day.

Pdx, what a staunch supporter of Pangea! You've obviously met Clare and possibly you are she. I've met her, and can hardly imagine anyone launching such a defense in her behalf except Clare herself.

“For the people, by the people” has changed to “for a small group of people, by a small group of people”. Governments do not like change, and they don’t like to admit when they are wrong. This drug war is wrong. Things need to change. The problem is that politicians, judges, and the like own stock in prisons. If prison population goes down, people who own stock in prisons loose money. If this drug war ended prison population would be cut in half. This drug war has cost the tax payers trillions. Drugs like ibogaine would help drug addicts but hurt the stock portfolio of the law makers. Ibogaine will stay schedule 1 in America. Sad but true.

What a great article! Thanks for increasing the awareness of Ibogaine. Please visit: www.ibogaine-treatment.com for more information.

we supply iboga,ibogaine Hcl,Iboga TA,Iboga,we have a vast area of herbal farmland as seen on the first image where we cultivate the Iboga plant and other herbal drugs used for theraphy and cleansing of patients. We have the seeds,the root, bark of the tree and the flowes for sales and for use in the treatment of patients.

View our web for more details:http://ibogasolution.org