Ibogaine - History

History

It is uncertain exactly how long iboga has been used in African spiritual practice, but its activity was first observed by French and Belgian explorers in the 19th century. The first botanical description of the Tabernanthe iboga plant was made in 1889. Ibogaine was first isolated from T. iboga in 1901 by Dybowski and Landrin and independently by Haller and Heckel in the same year using T. iboga samples from Gabon. In the 1930s, ibogaine was sold in France in 8 mg tablets under the name "Lambarene". The total synthesis of ibogaine was accomplished by G. Büchi in 1966. Since then, several further totally synthetic routes have been developed.

In the early 1960s, anecdotal reports appeared concerning ibogaine's effects. The use of ibogaine in treating substance use disorders in human subjects was first observed by Howard Lotsof in 1962, for which he was later awarded U.S. Patent 4,499,096 in 1985.

Ibogaine was placed in US Schedule 1 in 1967 as part of the US government's strong response to the upswing in popularity of psychedelic substances, though iboga itself was scarcely known at the time. Ibogaine's ability to attenuate opioid withdrawal confirmed in the rat was first published by Dzoljic et al. (1988). Ibogaine's use in diminishing morphine self-administration in preclinical studies was shown by Glick et al. (1991) and ibogaine's capacity to reduce cocaine self-administration in the rat was shown by Cappendijk et al. in 1993. Animal model support for ibogaine claims to treat alcohol dependence were established by Rezvani in 1995.

The name "Indra extract", in strict terms, refers to 44 kg of an iboga extract manufactured by an unnamed European industrial manufacturer in 1981. This stock was later purchased by Carl Waltenburg, who distributed it under the name "Indra extract". Waltenburg used this extract to treat heroin addicts in Christiania, Denmark, a squatter village where heroin addiction was widespread in 1982. Indra extract was offered for sale over the Internet until 2006, when the Indra web presence disappeared. It is unclear whether the extracts currently sold as "Indra extract" are actually from Waltenburg's original stock, or whether any of that stock is even viable or in existence. Ibogaine and related indole compounds are susceptible to oxidation when exposed to oxygen.

An ibogaine research project was funded by the US National Institute on Drug Abuse in the 1990s. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) abandoned efforts to continue this project into clinical studies in 1995. Data demonstrating ibogaine's efficacy in attenuating opioid withdrawal in drug-dependent human subjects was published by Alper et al. (1999) and Mash et al. (2000).