4th February 2020

Iboga Safety: The Facts

Iboga treatment has been growing more popular with each passing year. Its profound beneficial effects on withdrawal symptoms and its remarkable ability to interrupt opioid addiction have changed thousands of lives, pushing addicts to break free from their crippling afflictions and easing them forward on the path to recovery. But like many powerful substances, its use comes with a number of legitimately frightening side effects and risks. While we at Iboga Tree Healing House are fervently committed to iboga safety in the treatment of addiction treat addiction, we are equally passionate about educating the public about the potential dangers that iboga treatment poses, and ensuring that anyone looking to use the substance knows absolutely everything about the healing and harm that iboga can potentially bring.

The Risks

The Global Ibogaine Therapy Alliance (GITA) has a comprehensive list of potential side-effects that can arise from iboga use, which includes all of the medical conditions that can be negatively affected by the substance. They’ve confirmed that 19 deaths were associated with ingestion of iboga between 1990 and 2008, all of which were “associated with a number of pre-existing conditions and factors that include pre-existing cardiac conditions, seizures resulting from acute withdrawal from alcohol or benzodiazepines” and the use of iboga alongside other “drugs of abuse.”

If you have a heart condition, impaired kidney or liver function, certain psychological conditions, or if you’re undergoing withdrawal from a variety of substances (such as methadone, benzos, alcohol, and others) you should absolutely avoid using iboga. Some studies have found that extremely high doses of the drug may induce seizures, although in smaller doses it acts as an anti-convulsive. Iboga is a very powerful psychoactive substance that substantially affects the central nervous system. Iboga can heal, but it can also harm.

Necessary Iboga Safety Precautions

All conscientious providers of iboga therapy should exclude those with pre-existing heart conditions from treatment. Of the 19 iboga related deaths documented thus far, six were determined to have come from cardiac arrest, and in five of those cases, the deceased had been diagnosed with a heart condition. The one cardiac arrest death which occurred in a user with a healthy heart was the result of self-administration of iboga along with an unspecified “booster” which he had purchased on the internet.

There is debate on whether patients with HIV and certain psychiatric disorders can use iboga safely. The usual reason offered for the exclusion of these groups is a paucity of research into whether the substance can potentially exacerbate the symptoms of these diseases. Since there is no hard evidence that iboga therapy is harmful to patients with HIV, some treatment facilities continue to offer iboga to those suffering from the virus, but at Iboga Tree Healing House we have decided to err on the side of caution. For a full list of our inclusion and exclusion criteria, follow this link.

Mixing Iboga With Other Substances

Beginning iboga therapy while other drugs of abuse are still in your system is extremely dangerous and must be avoided. Iboga can exponentially increase the effect of opiates, so it’s necessary for safe treatment that you must go through detox before you enter treatment. The intensely reflective state, reduction of cravings, neurological effects, and sense of well-being that iboga can provide have helped many alcoholics to recover from addiction, but withdrawal from alcohol must be completed before iboga can be safely administered. It is recommended that patients suffering from alcoholism complete at least 7 days of medically supervised withdrawal, or they’ll put themselves at risk of a host of side-effects including cardiomyopathy, delirium tremens, and seizures.

It should also be noted one side-effect of iboga is that it reduces substance users to a so-called “novice state.” Therefore, following treatment your tolerance to opioids and other substances will be dramatically lowered. While all addicts enter recovery with the intention to stay sober for the rest of their lives, it’s important that they are mindful of this in the event of a relapse, as vulnerability to severe intoxication or even an overdose will be greatly increased.

Providers and Iboga Safety

Any reputable and responsible iboga provider should be asking you for a great deal of medical information. This article offers a thorough breakdown of what a clinic needs from you to provide for your iboga safety. GITA also offers a comprehensive list of Clinical Guidelines for Iboga-Assisted Detoxification on their website. Iboga Tree Healing House takes every step possible to guarantee the safety of our patients, requiring our clients to take an EKG test, be free from stimulants (including coffee), undertake a comprehensive blood count and metabolic panel, and test liver and kidney function. We also measure levels of serum electrolytes and thyroid function for patients over 45 years old.

The most important piece of advice we can give you is this: if a clinic isn’t asking you for a detailed medical and psychiatric history and providing you with information about their emergency plan, turn around and walk away as fast as you can! This means that they’re more interested in your money than your health and iboga safety, or they are ignorant of and unconcerned with the potentially fatal harm the substance can cause when used irresponsibly.   

The Good News

In spite of all of the associated risks, and even accounting for the fact that iboga is frequently used without adequate (and in some cases any) medical screening and supervision, it is still safer than methadone! 19 deaths have been temporally associated with Iboga use, and 14 of them have provided adequate post-mortem data. Of those 14, 12 cases involved either a pre-existing medical condition or the presence of other drugs of abuse in the system of the deceased. The other two occurred in settings without adequate medical supervision.

We will be the first to tell you that iboga is not completely safe, but we feel that each and every death associated with its use has been preventable and avoidable. Because we have seen its immense potential to re-build lives devastated by addiction and mental illness, we have become advocates not only for its benefits but also for providing the public with all the information we can give them about the risks and precautions necessary for using this remarkable plant. Irresponsible use can end lives. It can also keep this promising tool for fighting the opioid epidemic away from thousands of those who could reclaim their lives and health with safely administered and supervised iboga therapy.