IBOGAINE BENEFITS

I would like to correct a point made in your ibogaine article (News, 14
January). Far from being dozens of deaths, there have only been three, none
directly attributed to ibogaine, a new treatment for heroin addiction.

The plant can be dangerous at the high dose used by the Bwiti for a 'once
in a lifetime' religious initiation in Gabon, but not at the far lower
dosages used to break opiate and methadone addictions and eliminating the
usual withdrawal symptoms. Ibogaine is a plant medicine requiring extensive
research, offering as it does a means of curing one of society's greater
ills (and the crime associated with it).

Shane Collins
London SW2