The War on Anti-Drugs

By John Sarvay

If you’re heading for Europe this summer and still aren’t convinced you’ve put that heroin addiction behind you, you may want to stop off in Amsterdam. But don’t head for a hash house, try to hook up with a ibogaine dealer.

The African hallucinogen is a growing legend in the kick-the-habit circuit. The bitter white powder—illegal in the United States—is available only in clog country. Word is that ibogaine stops drug cravings much the same way Raid stops bugs—in their tracks. It also unleashes a day-long multimedia show inside the users head, dredging old memories up like mud. Last, but certainly not least, it doesn’t replace one dependency with another.

Ibogaine is extracted from Tabernanthe iboga, which could soon become the leading export and national flower of Gabon. Not that the plant isn’t already popular there. Gabonese hunters use the plant as a stimulant, and it is believed that the root enables people to speak with the dead. The French are no dummies; during the Carter era, people snatched it up at pharmacy counters where it was sold as a fatigue remedy.

In the United States, however, the drug is greeted with skepticism, even alarm. At Johns Hopkins University, researchers discovered through animal testing that ibogaine simply kills the brain cells associated with obsessive or compulsive behavior. The Food and Drug Administration has allowed to University of Miami neuroscientists proceed with limited human testing. Within a year, it is hoped, ibogain will either be the new anti-drug of choice or it will head to the dustbin with other failed treatments.