Opioids

are a class of drugs that include the illegal drug heroin, synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, and pain relievers available legally by prescription, such as oxycodone (OxyContin®, hydrocodone (Vicodin), codeine, morphine, and many others.

Fentanyl is an elephant tranquilizer that is often used to adulterate street heroin thus dramatically increasing the overdose death rate.

Addiction, neither disease nor choice,

is a condition that impacts body, mind and spirit. It comes from the Latin word ‘Addictus,’ meaning ‘to say’ and is used in the sense of ‘a debt slave; a person who has been bound as a slave to his creditor’. Many people have described themselves as “enslaved” by their opioid addiction. Addiction cannot be healed by pills and detox alone because they do not address the underlying root cause, which, according to addiction expert Dr. Gabor Mate, is always trauma.

EXCERPTED FROM FOOTAGE SHOT FOR OUR UPCOMING DOCUMENTARY ‘IBOGA: ROOT TO LIBERATION’

Ibogaine, the addiction interruptor

Ibogaine is a natural medicine for addiction that comes from the root bark of the IBOGA tree. It not only can interrupt addiction and eliminates withdrawal, it can also repair brain tissue damaged by prolonged opioid use. On a human level, an ibogaine treatment, combined with an integration plan can bring back a sense of wholeness and purpose to a person suffering from opioid addiction, and can offer them a real second chance at reclaiming life. Plant medicines like IBOGA can act as chemical doorways to direct experience. They can be instrumental in us being able to deal with the shadows and traumas of life on the psychological and spiritual level, where the wound originates.The IBOGA experience is a return to the root, not just the root cause of one’s problems, but the root source of one’s strength. This makes it a gift to humanity, especially during an opioid epidemic.

What are the risk factors of Iboga?

This treatment is not for everybody. People with cardiac issues may be at risk of arrhythmia during the treatment. The best clinics out there will do rigorous pre-screenings which may include blood tests, EKGs and health intake data. During the treatment they will monitor the client’s heart-rate and pulse throughout the procedure. They will recommend nutritional pre-care and integration after care. However Ibogaine remains illegal and unregulated in the US, so the death rate is reported to be 1 in 300 or 400 (unconfirmed). That being said, the death rate from overdose is so much greater, that even as it now stands, Ibogaine treatments are our best hope. These risk factors would be greatly mitigated if people could have access to IBOGA in a safe, legal, therapeutic environment, within the United States, and if medical research and best practices were freely available.

Tragically, illegal in the country that most needs it.

Map courtesy of Crossroadsibogaine.com

The tragedy of parents losing a child to overdose, kids on anti-psychotics, rising levels of psychological distress, moral depravity and cultural destruction can all be attributed to this one thing– lack of legal access to the plants that are organic chemical cocktails designed by nature to put you directly in touch with your subconscious and superconscious. Just like food gives you nutrition for your body, entheogenic plants can give you nutrition for your mind and spirit.

We are dealing with 2,000 years of cultural prohibition, compounded by a set of antiquated U.S. laws made in the late ’60s which made no distinction between shamanic substances with a long history of religious and medicinal use like IBOGA and harmful narcotics like heroin, cocaine, and meth amphetamines. They were thrown indiscriminately into a category defined by the DEA as a Schedule I Controlled Substance, with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse” with severe criminal consequences for their possession, ingestion and sale. IBOGA is clearly mistakenly classified in this category.

Not a recreational drug. A powerful medicine for addiction and trauma.

Evidence confirms that there is nothing recreational about an IBOGA treatment. The experience lasts from 12-36 hours and requires an in-patient procedure, either in a clinic or in a retreat center.  Either way, trained medical staff incorporate monitoring of vitals along with preparation and after-care. While it works on a physiological level to repair brain tissue and neurons, on a psycho-spiritual level, IBOGA often presents one with a starkly honest ‘life review’ that allows one to understand the roots of one’s illness or situation. For a person struggling for years with opioid addiction, it’s as though they have become their own doctor and metaphysician, empowered to understand and instantly heal years of dysfunction.