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from the we've-built-up-an-immunity-to-ibogaine-powder dept.
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Source: https://www.inverse.com/article/31461-ibogaine-cure-addiction
In West Africa, the roots of a native shrub contain a psychoactive substance called ibogaine. In small doses, ibogaine produces a mild euphoric effect somewhat comparable to other stimulant plants, like khat in the Horn of Africa or piri piri in the Amazon. But in large doses, its psychedelic effects are extraordinary.
[...] In Brazil, which has no such crisis, Gomes and his colleagues work with patients addicted to (predominately) crack cocaine. Though they'll meet with their patients a number of times, they'll administer ibogaine to each person only once. Speaking at the MAPS Psychedelic Science Conference in California late last month, Gomes said most people he sees are addicts for whom traditional therapy and the various Anonymous programs have failed. They tend to be impatient with the precursor meetings and adherence to controlled settings, wanting mostly to get the drug, take it, and leave cured.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jcross on Tuesday May 30 2017, @01:52AM
In my opinion there's nothing special about ibogaine here, only that its traditional use is to take a massive dose. The described effects can happen with large doses of psilocybin, for example, which is found in wild fungi in parts of the USA and is far cheaper to produce. My guess is geographical separation is the reason why ibogaine *is* being pushed for this use, because there's no associated moral panic or counterculture/subculture to cast a shadow on it. As to whether/why it works, I don't think it's possible for anyone to insightfully speak to that who hasn't experienced some psychedelic in a controlled setting in a high enough dose to fully disconnect them from reality for some hours. Sure the research needs to be done, but I don't believe the effect is mechanistic like aspirin or antibiotics, it's likely at a much higher systems level.
Also you can be world-weary all you want, but there are absolutely moneyed interests who don't want to see various addictions cured, and certainly not in a single dose, and certainly not a dose of something you can grow and use without an organic chemistry lab. Many of these people have massive lobbying power, so I don't think it's too big of a stretch to assume a "conspiracy", as many organizations have both the motive and the means.
This is more speculative, but if you look at how psychoactive drugs are scheduled, the prohibited ones tends to lead users into non-compliance and the ones you can get OTC or with a prescription either encourage compliance or just "take the edge off". I'm not calling it a conspiracy, but if I were trying to keep a populace docile and productive I could hardly design it better. I find it strange that the official pro-marijuana line I'm hearing now is don't use it before age 25 or something because "your brain is still forming", yet it's considered perfectly okay to prescribe drugs for children that help them sit in a chair all day or paper a smile over their understandable anxiety and depression. We have absolutely no idea what effect that might have on them in say 20 or 30 years, so we're effectively experimenting with children who can't give fully free and informed consent while disallowing potentially life-saving experiments on consenting adults. Maybe it has to do with whether the effect helps keep "order" or not?