Seven Years Facing a Wall

I embarked upon the Iboga Saves documentary effort in 2018. We raised some money, got a lot of footage. Somewhere along the way I realized the pain point was money, ibogaine is expensive for both provider and patient and as long as it is Schedule 1 insurance won’t cover it and the ordinary person cannot afford it.

So I pivoted from making a documentary and we created a non-profit, got a 501(c)3 license in 2021, and we launched the Awake platform as a crowdfunding platform where individuals suffering from deadly addictions can tell their stories and raise money for their individual treatments. It took seven years to get to this point where we have our first pilot group going through the crowdfunding process, and the first of these is Jessica.

It’s been a huge learning process for me every step of the way, because the general trend in the world of psychedelic medicine is towards the clinical pathway, which is built on future fumes and has claimed millions of dollars and attention.

Meanwhile, one person is dying every 10 minutes or so of overdose, and it costs a mere $10,000 to save that person’s life and a pathway exists NOW, outside the US to interrupt addiction with ibogaine.

I feel that we as a society have become numb to the tragedy inherent in these numbers: More people have died of overdose than in many wars. Just today If one hundred people gave one hundred dollars we could save a life. Many people in the psychedelic audience might spend that much several times a week on a meal.

Jessica is on a timeline. Not just with the Damocles sword that Fentanyl is, but because she got arrested while picking up her daily supply and faces a court date in a few weeks after which point she may not be able to travel out of the country for her ibogaine treatment. Jessica has been suffering since her late teens after a car accident and expired pain meds drove her to street drugs and later fentanyl addiction, and she has worked hard over the last year to qualify and go through the rigorous pre-screening steps for Awake’s FEAT ibogaine treatment journey and put in her foundational skin in the game deposit of $2400 to begin the process and now needs to raise the balance, over 10k.

Here is where the rubber meets the road and you could be the hundredth monkey or the thousandth Buddha with your generosity and help save Jessica’s life.

Watch Jessica’s video. See what a beautiful person she is.

Recommend0 recommendationsPublished in Awake Daily Dose, FEAT Fundraisers