Christopher Laurance on Ibogaine: Sacred Plant for Healing from Addiction

EARTH AID NOW! speaks with Christopher Laurance about ibogaine as a solution to addictions.

What is iboga and Ibogaine?

Ibogaine is the primary active component of the iboga plant. Iboga is plant from West Africa that is used as a visionary medicine by the Bwiti and Pygmy cultures. It is used as an initiation into adulthood and a powerful healer. In the 1960s a heroin addict named Howard Lotsoff accidentally discovered this plant's incredible properties to physically and neurochemically interrupt heroin addiction and other addictions. Since that time, a movement of former addicts treating addicts with iboga has spread worldwide. Ibogaine works like nothing else with regards to addiction, especially opiate addiction. It neurochemically resets the brain to a pre-addictive state. Addicts are able to arrest their drug addiction without, or with minimal withdrawal symptoms, and emerge from the ibogaine experience free of cravings or with cravings greatly reduced. Many people are set free from a lifetime of drug addiction with a single ibogaine treatment.

How and Why Ibogaine Works

Ibogaine resets the neurochemistry of the brain to a pre-addictive state. Ibogaine promotes the brain's ability to produce GDNF, which is a growth hormone that promotes neuroplasticity and neurological regeneration. This allows for a great deal of pattern changing and new growth that for many people did not seem possible before their ibogaine experience. The period of time after receiving ibogaine is something akin to a neurological second childhood, a place of freedom where old habits can be shed and new patterns can be created.