Addiction Alleviator? Hallucinogen’s popularity grows
By Brian Vastag
The unsanctioned use of an obscure drug to treat addiction has exploded recently, a new report finds.
A subculture of advocates who say the hallucinogen ibogaine alleviates addiction to opiates has welled up from New York City and spread to small clinics and informal treatment networks across the globe.
“On the basis of word of mouth, the ibogaine scene has quadrupled in the last 5 years,” says Ken Alper, a psychiatrist at the New York University School of Medicine in New York City. Alper and two colleagues published their report in the January Journal of Ethnopharmacology.