Psychedelics ibogaine

Ibogaine, the most studied of the alkaloids present in the roots of Tabemanthe iboga, is representative of another cluster of indolic molecules that have been included among psychedelics. Ibogaine is a naturally occurring compound of special interest because it comes from an entirely different botanical family than anything discussed above—a contribution to the mystery of psychedelics from equatorial Africa. 

Lotsof HS. (1995). Ibogaine in the treatment of chemical dependence disorders clinical perspectives. Bull Multidisciplinary Assoc Psychedelic Stud. 5 16-27. 

Sisko, B. (1993). Interrupting drug dependency with ibogaine a summary four case case histories. Multidisciplinary Association For Psychedelic Studies. 4 15-24. 

Ibogaine was isolated in 1901 from Tabemanthe iboga roots by Dybowski and Landrin and by Haller and Heckel. The most abundant alkaloid in the shrub s root bark, ibogaine exhibts the indole nucleus structure common to most psychedelics. Its stereochemistry (the dotted lines are at angles to the rest of the molecule) was established in the late 1960s ... 

The salience of animals, primitives, sexual themes, and aggression in ibogaine and harmaline experiences would justify regarding them as drugs that bring out the instinctual side of the ptsyche. This stressing of man-the-animal contrasts with the effects of the airy or ethereal "psychedelics . ... 

A small amount of ibogaine has been synthesized for the psychedelic subculture, but this is rare. It is proscribed in Schedule I of the 1970 drug legislation. Its illegal status and the difficult manufacturing process have led most psychedelic chemists to conclude, as Michael Valentine Smith suggests in Psychedelic Chemistry, that it isn t worth the trouble. 

Tabernanthe iboga, a shrub native to equatorial Africa, is the source of iboga and ibogaine, reputedly two of the most potent psychedelics on planet Earth. These drugs are all but impossible to obtain in the U.S., having been put on Schedule I many years ago. (This despite the fact... 

Goutarel, R., (1993). "Pharmacodynamics and therapeutic applications of Iboga and Ibogaine," Psychedelic Monographs and Essays 6, pp. 71-111. 

The ideal would be something like Naranjo (1973), which remains the best comparative study of psychedelics that I have seen. Naranjo treats four compounds (MDA, MMDA, harmaline and ibogaine) in detail, clearly characterizing the qualitative properties of each and differentiating between them. However, he devoted an entire book to these four compounds. In order for the Shulgins to provide equal detail for their hundreds of compounds, they would have to produce an encyclopedia, rather than a mere thousand page book. 

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