Ibogaine, anyone? Gwyneth Paltrow believes the African hallucinogen will become more mainstream. Paltrow made the claim in a recent interview with the
New York Times to promote Goop, her lifestyle brand. No mention that ibogaine has been linked to at least 19 deaths. And other health threats. Or that it is severely restricted in most Western countries.
So ignoring yet another bout of Paltrow pseudoscience, what is ibogaine, where does it come from, and what are its known effects?
The late American biologist Richard Evans Schultes, father of ethnobotany and expert on hallucinogenic plants, was familiar with
Tabernanthe iboga, the source of ibogaine. He recorded that, "In addition to a hallucinogen, ibogaine in large doses is a strong central nervous system stimulant, leading to convulsions, paralysis and arrest of respiration." Along the way, it is also an aphrodisiac, although if you cannot breathe, this may fail to be of immediate interest.
The effects of the root bark of the iboga tree are said to have discovered by the Pygmy tribe of Central Africa and passed on to the Bwiti tribe of Gabon. What today is the République gabonaise was occupied by France officially in 1885 as part of their colonial empire. Four years later,
Tabernanthe iboga was first botanically described.
Amongst the Bwiti, according to Schultes, "Large doses induce unworldly visions and 'sorcerers' often take the drug to seek information from ancestors and the spirit world." French explorers introduced the root bark to Europe 1899-1900. After ibogaine was isolated there, it was marketed in France from the 1930s as a stimulant, Lambarène, until it became illegal there in 1966. It was, however, studied by the US Central Intelligence Agency in 1950s--not exactly a recommendation.
Since then, ibogaine has been used in a controversial treatment of opioid addiction rather than as a recreation drug. Given the possible hazardous side effects, it is remains restricted, Paltrow notwithstanding, in many countries. For example, it is controlled by prescription only in Canada, Australia and New Zealand; in the U.S., it is classed under Schedule 1 by the Federal Drug Administration.
Researchers remain intrigued by ibogaine's pharmaceutical possibilities and continue to attempt to isolate the active materials. This is complicated by ibogaine being but the principal indole alkaloid among a dozen others present in iboga.
These studies have led to the surprising presence of ibogaine in two other trees and shrubs.
Voacanga africana is a small tree from tropical Africa. Despite minor amounts of the drug in the root bark, both the bark and seeds are reportedly used in Ghana as a poison, stimulant, aphrodisiac and ceremonial psychedelic. Across the Atlantic, the Amazonian rainforest shrub Becchete,
Tabernaemontana undulata, is used by Matsés, a tribe between the Javari and Galvez rivers of Peru and Brazil.
