The way the slip this BS into a headline is outrageous. This is because replacement "therapy" with Suboxone has become entrenched. They've been playing these games about psychedelics for close to 60 years now. The problem is when they were made illegal, they were then left to the underground and no supportive care. This allowed for adverse effects.
And it is highly disappointing how our party has missed the boat and given a rare win to do some good to the GOP and this administration. I am biased as I have been actively involved in this space since the mid 1990s and have seen the clinics go from a few individuals to a huge number of formal clinics. Myself not having been an addict beyond binge drinking into my early thirties the inpatient treatment model hasn't been my focus. I am more interested in mini and micro dosage of ibogaine for neuroprotective and restorative effects.
I personally started taking small dosages called ibogaine micro-dosing. I created a new dosage level for ibogaine around 10% of typical micro-dosing levels. I didn't like that it had a stimulant feel and keep diluting my dose until I settled on a fraction of a single milligram, which seems effective for mostly healthy people. the higher mini dosage is better for those recovering from addiction or any head trauma. I was part of getting a pilot project where it has been tried and adopted for prophylactic use by combat personal in Europe. This makes me shudder being morally a pacifist but this is being used with the goal of reducing brain injury. Early reports are that it is working and the side we are rooting for immediately adopted it but no details about how widespread it is becoming there are forthcoming. Eventually that will be studied.
On to what this announcement is about. FDA clinical trials can be initiated by Hospitals, most commonly by Corporations and finally by state and local Governments. Kentucky almost did a clinical trial using opioid settlement money but it didn't get through the legislature. Now Texas has allocated $50 million and Nevada is also racing to do their own clinical trial. This is all a side effect of Citizen's United giving big medical groups extra political sway. GOP having been the party supporting both legitimate and more sketchy supplement makers were more open to discussing psychedelic medicine. So that is the controversy arising from both parties being mostly beholden to big pharma and big health providers.
There is no effective withdrawal treatment for Suboxone and the notion of eventually getting the patients off this therapy is avoided. There is big business in keeping people hooked on this corporatized "treatment". This has created issues where the "medical clinics" who offer this can arbitrarily abruptly halt medication putting people into worse withdrawal symptoms than Heroin itself, which is tough as is.
Ibogaine has been demonstrated repeatedly that it can get patients off of narcotics with low withdrawal symptoms over less than two days, with maybe a pre and post day for more severe cases. It also works versus stimulant dependency, and about half of patients cease nicotine use post treatment. Finally it has shown to have an almost 50% success rate with chronic alcohol abuse cases, which the statistical catch of this measure being patients who have been fully detoxed and dry for 10 or more days before treatment. Narcotics and Stimulants don't require this pre treatment and can eliminate withdrawal directly.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2024/01/ibogaine-ptsd.html
Stanford Medicine researchers find that ibogaine, a plant-based psychoactive compound, safely led to improvements in depression, anxiety and functioning among veterans with traumatic brain injuries.
“No other drug has ever been able to alleviate the functional and neuropsychiatric symptoms of traumatic brain injury,” Williams said. “The results are dramatic, and we intend to study this compound further.”
https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(26)00496-7
Magnesium-ibogaine is associated with increased cortical thickness in veterans with blast TBI
Predicted brain age was reduced by a mean of ∼1.3 years at 1 month post-treatment
Subcortical volume expansion occurred in cerebellar, forebrain, and diencephalic regions
Findings compatible with increased structural neuroplasticity after magnesium-ibogaine
Summary
Ibogaine is a psychoactive alkaloid with therapeutic potential that may promote neuroplasticity. Its effects on human brain morphometry are unknown. Thirty Special Operations Forces veterans with prior blast-induced TBI participated in an observational study in which they received ibogaine co-administered with magnesium. Structural MRIs were collected at baseline (n = 25), initial post-treatment (n = 25), and 1-month post (n = 22). Longitudinal analyses assessed cortical thickness, subcortical volume, and predicted brain age (pBA), estimated from T1 scans. pBA was significantly reduced at 1 month relative to baseline (−1.3 years). Cortical thickness analysis revealed post-treatment increases in 11 regions. Subcortical analyses revealed significant volumetric expansion in 8 regions. Magnesium-ibogaine therapy was associated with increased cortical thickness, subcortical expansion, and reduced pBA at 1 month. Although T1s are sensitive to nonstructural changes, the overall direction of effect is consistent with neuroplastic change.
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