Getting Off on Mother Nature - ProvokatoR magazine

Getting Off on Mother Nature

on 28-03-2008 14:11

Published in : , World

by Marika

Imagine an organic substance that could help get your brother, your girlfriend or yourself off drugs. Imagine it had an incredible success rate. Imagine withdrawal consisted of a mere vomit-and-hallucination-filled 36 hours (nothing compared to the normal two weeks of sickness and 3 months of recovery- only to possibly relapse within a year). Imagine your cravings for your favorite drug were diminished significantly. Imagine you could be drug free for life. Now imagine this substance were kept secret and as far out of reach as possible.

This substance isn’t a fantasy or a tease; it’s a chemical-dependence-interrupter called Ibogaine. A naturally-occurring alkaloid found in Tabernanthe iboga and other plants of Central West Africa, it is used by the Biwiti tribe for adolescent rites of passage rituals. But how did it go from Biwiti bar mitzvahs to a hophead-saving substance?

We spoke to the Johnny Appleseed of Ibogaine, Eric Taub, while he was in Tanzania working on a non-profit project serving people in need as well as being an ear-worm to the Minister of Health about the benefits of the substance. Taub has been involved in several experimental and underground projects concerned with Ibogaine and making its healing properties accessible to a section of society that wouldn’t normally have access to it, for legal and financial reasons.

A Buddhist by nature, Taub's tranquility is at times unnerving. He has no visible regard for geographical or political boundaries. The risks he has taken bringing Ibogaine to places where it is listed as a Schedule 1 drug has taken no perceptible toll. “I'm not really politically-minded," he says. "Ibogaine is considered a controlled substance, it’s a felony to possess in the U.S., same drug class as heroin and cocaine.” It's ironic that Ibogaine is classed with the same drugs that it helps to counteract, but Eric simply scowls, saying that such laws “Put a little bit of a damper on the situation.”

In fact, Taub doesn't consider Ibogaine a harmful substance: “I don't view it as a cure, I view it as the most humane, the most powerful tool that has ever come across in terms of its capacity to interrupt addiction and eliminate cravings.”

So why is a naturally-occurring, cost-effective and, for the most part, safe option for interrupting drug addiction kept in the illegal cookie jar? According to Taub, because your pain is very profitable. “Pharmaceutical companies are very reticent to accept it,” says Taub, “it would significantly decrease the amount of conventional meds that they dispense to the traditional rehabilitation industry. Both of which are billions of dollar industries.”

Ibogaine dosage is determined by body weight and the type of application the treatment is being used for (e.g., stimulants, alcohol, cigarettes). “If it’s for methadone, you'd have approx 30 mg of Ibogaine per kilogram of your body weight. If it’s for psycho-spiritual reasons you will be taking 1/5th that amount. It depends on metabolism, age, type of addiction and type of therapeutic experience.”

The U.S. has considered Ibogaine an illegal psychoactive substance since1969, “Because [the U.S is] a Christian country,” in Taub’s opinion. “It is certainly not a recreational experience; it’s too arduous, too deep of a self-reflecting experience for many people to be interested in it.”

Of the tribes who use Eboga (one of the plants from which Ibogaine is derived) as a sacrament, the Banzie of Central West Africa, are particularly cautious about giving Eboga to people who otherwise seem susceptible to psychic disturbance. The tribe is concerned that Eboga will carry such people too far - to death.

“Invariably every few hundred treatments there is a death,” says Taub. In his estimation, there’s been 1500 recorded Ibogaine-related deaths. He figures that it’s mostly a result of taking opiates during the Ibogaine session: “If there's one hard and fast rule that one absolutely adheres to; you cannot combine opiates with Ibogaine, because Ibogaine potentially is opiates. When you do Ibogaine the [brain’s] receptors are completely clear and bare, it’s like a baby doing heroin.”

Regarding Ibogaine's path to Western clients from Central West Africa, Taub has this to say: “They want to keep a very low profile. There are other people who have Ibogaine hydrochloride available. I'm not familiar with their sources but I know the people who have it.” Taub says, “There's an extract that's about 20%, located primarily in the Netherlands, called INDRA, as well as an extract created in Cuba in 1983.”

But Taub says he has “no idea” how Ibogaine gets into America. “It’s really kind of an organic process, more grassroots, and as the years go by it has gained an energy of its own. So far we haven't reached some level of critical mass where the next day its going to be a household name. However, that day may come.”

Presently Ibogaine is used in several countries as a valid drug rehabilitation treatment. It is available illegally in America for approximately 2000 USD. European treatment centers or facilitators can be found in UK, Netherlands, Slovenia, Germany, and maybe… just maybe in The Czech Republic.

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