What is the promising new use for Ibogaine?”
Howard Lotsof Dies at 66; Saw Drug Cure in a Plant By DENNIS HEVESI Published: February 17, 2010 Howard Lotsof was 19, addicted to heroin and searching for a new high in 1962 when he swallowed a bitter-tasting white powder taken from an exotic West African shrub. “The next thing I knew,” he told The New York Times in 1994, “I was straight.” The substance was ibogaine, an extract of Tabernanthe iboga, a perennial rain-forest plant found primarily in Gabon. In the Bwiti religion it is used in puberty initiation rites, inducing a powerful altered state for at least 48 hours during which young people are said to come into contact with a universal ancestor. By Mr. Lotsof’s account, when he and six friends who were also addicted tried ibogaine, five of them immediately quit, saying their desire for heroin had been extinguished. It was the start of a lifelong campaign for Mr. Lotsof. And now thousands of former addicts around the world and some scientists contend that ibogaine should be scien
Ibogaine is a naturally occurring psychoactive substance found in a number of plants, principally in a member of the Apocynaceae family known as iboga (Tabernanthe iboga). Ibogaine-containing preparations are used in medicinal and ritual purposes within African spiritual traditions of the Bwiti, who claim to have learned it from the Pygmy. In recent times, it has been identified as having anti-addictive properties. Ibogaine is an indole alkaloid that is obtained either by extraction from the iboga plant or by semi-synthesis from the precursor compound voacangine, another plant alkaloid. A full organic synthesis of ibogaine has been achieved but is too expensive and challenging to produce any commercially significant yield. In the early 1960s, anecdotal reports appeared concerning ibogaine’s effects.[1] Since that time, it has been the subject of investigation into its abilities to interrupt addictions to methadone, heroin, alcohol, and cocaine. It is thought that ibogaine may have pote
