THE QUEST FOR THE ULTIMATE CURE FOR ADDICTION

Could the root of an African shrub hold the key to getting millions
of addicts off heroin, coke, and crack - oh, yeah, and cure
alcoholism in its spare time? Can a single dose of an extract from
the mysterious shrub's root bark be worth years on a therapist's couch?

Some of the answers may soon be found in a three-bedroom house on the
Sunshine Coast. Tucked away there on a hill, with a stunning view of
the ocean and surrounded by tall trees, is the Iboga Therapy House.

Forty years after globetrotting backpackers introduced a substance
called ibogaine into the U.S. drug culture, the extract from western
Africa's Tabernanthe iboga shrub has become an underground rage among
drug-addled Hollywood celebs willing to plunk down between $3,500 and
$10,000 for ibogaine treatment at any one of about a dozen
unregulated clinics worldwide, including the one in B.C.

Because ibogaine is illegal in the U.S. - one of just three
countries to ban the substance, along with Belgium and Switzerland -
clients have to travel to clinics in countries such as Canada,
Mexico, Costa Rica, and Slovenia for an "ibogaine experience".

Advocates liken the miracle drug - which can unleash a
reality-shattering trip so powerful it has been described as "dying
and going to hell 1,000 times" - to the Holy Grail of addiction
cures, comparable in importance to the discovery of penicillin.
Although ibogaine's alleged ability to quickly cure opiate addiction
without withdrawal symptoms was discovered relatively recently, the
substance has long been used in Gabon by hunters to stay alert and,
in larger doses, in week-long sacred ceremonies in the Bwiti religion.

Yet despite the extraordinary claims about ibogaine's powers, a B.C.
study launched last February is the first time the drug's therapeutic
benefits for opiate addiction are being measured systematically in a
public investigation. (Other clinics haven't released data.)

Preliminary results from the Sunshine Coast clinic have justified
much of the hype. "I've witnessed people's lives being turned
around," said Leah Martin, one of the study leaders. Of 20 pre-study
clients who took ibogaine at the facility in 2004, 13 were found to
be abstaining when evaluated later, after an average interval of six
months. The abstainers included six out of seven cocaine or crack
addicts, three of eight opiate addicts and four of five people with
other addictions, including to meth and multiple substances.

With an overall abstinence rate of 65 percent, ibogaine does way
better than the 10-percent average of conventional drug-treatment
programs, Martin said. What's more, the clients at the B.C. facility
are usually the hardest cases.

"People who contact the Iboga Therapy House have already done every
type of program in their city and are scouring the Internet [for
help]. They've been in detox multiple times and are highly resistant
to other therapy. They say, 'This is my last hope,'" she said.

Ibogaine works in two ways. It eliminates cravings for heroin and
other drugs in many people, but it also often works at a deeper
level, getting them to revisit life experiences good and bad and
helping many find ways to heal and ensure cravings don't come back.
Scientists say it's like hitting a reset button for your brain.
Traces of the drug remain in the body for up to six months,
continuing to ward off addictive urges in unknown ways. "It truly is
its own category [of drug]," Martin said. "Right after, it's common
for people to say, 'Whoa, what was that?' But a month later, people
might wake up and remember something and be able to move forward."

Ibogaine appears to work on "every neurotransmitter system we know
about", Kenneth Alper, a psychiatry professor at New York University
School of Medicine, told the Journal of the American Medical
Association in a 2002 story on ibogaine. Alper, who is also a
co-investigator in the B.C. study, has called the use of ibogaine
"one of the biggest paradigm shifts regarding treatment for addiction
in the span of my career".

In a testimonial on the Iboga Therapy House's Web site, one client
says of the trip: "I pretty much died to my old self. I yelled, I
kicked, I screamed (inside myself) but this new knowledge is too
powerful to ignore." Says another: "I believe Iboga brings you into
and through the land of the dead, to the land of the Gods."

The Georgia Straight connected with Martin early one morning near the
end of her 8 p.m.-to-8 a.m. shift as a program worker at a Downtown
Eastside residential detox centre run by the Portland Hotel Community
Services Society. She spoke about her own ibogaine trip: "I felt as a
facilitator I should know what it was like, to be able to relate."

An ibogaine experience usually lasts 24 to 36 hours, most of which
is, typically, spent on your back because of impaired muscle
coordination and perception. The first four hours usually involve
plenty of vomiting, coupled with hallucinations and strange physical
sensations. This isn't a drug for clubland.

Next is eight hours of what Martin called the "cognitive phase: the
beginning stages of insights. You're remembering things or events. It
tells a very interesting story of yourself and your life."

The intense visions are dreamlike, Martin said, but "if you find
yourself in a vision you don't like, you can just open your eyes.
There is a lot of randomness along with insights. It truly was a
reflection of my mind and the things I obsess about. I laughed at
myself a lot, realizing how ridiculous people can be."

This is the phase that can give people with addictions deep new
insights into their troubles. "If you had trauma, people can relive
that. After they're traumatized, sometimes they shut themselves off
from the pain, and that's why they adopt certain habits. But to be
able to see it in a healing way [with ibogaine] can be beneficial."

Then comes another 12 to 24 hours of "residual stimulation" as the
person keeps dreaming but slowly comes down, often falling asleep.

Advocates say the drug isn't addictive itself partly because the trip
is so hellacious. "It is not a recreational drug," said Rick Doblin,
president of the California-based Multidisciplinary Association of
Psychedelic Studies, which is helping to fund the Iboga Therapy House
study. Doblin is also the principal investigator.

The ibogaine work is just one of MAPS's stable of groundbreaking
research projects. The group is also funding the first-ever studies
of therapy involving ecstasy, LSD, and magic mushrooms to deal with
mental-health issues like posttraumatic stress, end-of-life anxiety,
and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The U.S. studies all have an
official okay from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and even of
the drug warriors at the Drug Enforcement Agency, and are attracting
interest from the U.S. military for treating PTSD among Iraq vets.

Early results show ecstasy is not only safe for therapeutic purposes,
but it can also help people who don't respond to conventional therapy
or treatment with the pharmaceutical drugs normally given for
posttraumatic stress: Zoloft and Paxil. Doblin described the ecstasy
results as "dramatic" far better than those from the standard treatments.

The work has still met ferocious resistance from the DEA, however.
MAPS is battling the agency in court to get permission for scientists
to grow marijuana in order to study its use for pain relief, control
of nausea, and other medical purposes. Last February, a judge ruled
in MAPS's favour, but the DEA has filed a series of objections,
citing security concerns and likening Doblin to Colombian drug lord
Pablo Escobar.

Speaking over the phone from his home in Boston, Doblin said he owes
much of his doggedness and success to his own ibogaine trip in 1985,
a year before he founded MAPS. "I feel it's been a major contributor
to what I've been able to accomplish," he said, describing the
experience as "lasting, powerful and very positive, although at the
time it was horrendous".

Back then, already active in drug-policy reform, he said he suffered
from a neurosis common to many activists "a certain arrogance, that
we know the better world". An underground therapist suggested
ibogaine could help him grow personally and become a more effective activist.

Doblin took it one morning at the oceanfront house of a therapist,
who stayed at his side. He lay in bed with his eyes closed all day,
vomiting constantly, coughing and feeling like he was choking. The
barf brought out complex emotions: "a line between self-criticism,
self-perception, and self-hatred". He started to blame his intense
nausea on his inability to just chill out and unwind. "I thought this
was all my doing that I couldn't relax. If only I was better, I could
be a better tripper," he said. Then came realization: here was a
metaphor for his struggles with his arrogance. "I was crucified on
the cross of my own self-perfectionism," he said, laughing.

Twelve hours later, the stars came out, his guts relaxed, the
upchucking stopped and everything got good. "I had one of the most
blissful nights of my life. It felt like transcendence through
exhaustion," he said. "I'm forever grateful for that experience. I
think about it often."

The experience helped Doblin work out the arrogance thing; it also
enabled him to develop the confidence to strike out and found MAPS.
Yet he doesn't believe it's the easy wonder drug some suggest, and he
supported the B.C. study partly because of the underground myths
about ibogaine. "We've been deluded for a long time with the
miracle-cure approach," he said.

One problem is many ibogaine clinics that offer the expensive
treatment are happy to let potential clients believe it will solve
all their problems, Doblin said. The clinics have little incentive to
follow-up with clients or study the treatment's effectiveness, which,
he said, is widely overestimated.

First off, he said ibogaine isn't for everyone. It requires one to be
"open to the self-reflection that ibogaine permits. It takes a
certain courage to go through an ibogaine experience." Even for these
folks, he said, the trip has to be supported by aftercare and,
possibly, a second dose.

There may also be safety concerns. About a dozen deaths have occurred
during the 3,600 recorded ibogaine treatments that have taken place
outside Africa since 1990. Advocates say pharmaceutical drugs also
cause adverse reactions. Also, coroner reports in most of the cases
placed the blame not on ibogaine, but on conditions like heart or
liver disease and, in one case, a man choking on his vomit while
eating a sandwich after the session had ended.

Just the same, the Iboga Therapy House screens potential clients for
several medical conditions like ulcers, liver problems, blood clots,
and heart trouble. Patients start with a small test dose and are
observed for an hour for adverse reactions before the rest of the
gram-sized full dose is given.

Gone, however, are the halcyon days when the clinic used to offer
free ibogaine. In 2005, its founder, Vancouver pot entrepreneur Marc
Emery, ran out of cash to fund the facility, so it had to close. Last
February, the clinic reopened with money from MAPS. It now hopes to
become self-sustaining by charging $4,700 for a five- to seven-day
treatment session for dependence on heroin, methadone, and other
opiates, cocaine, crack, or alcohol. (Shorter, cheaper sessions are
also offered for spiritual or strictly therapeutic trips.)

Aside from the ibogaine, which the clinic buys for $700 a dose from a
distributor in Spain, the sessions include therapy, massage,
acupuncture, mild yoga, and elements of the traditional Bwiti
ceremony to set the mood for the ibogaine session. Only one client or
couple stays at the house at any time, and staff are on hand around
the clock to monitor them.

Doblin said the B.C. ibogaine clinic is inexpensive when compared to
hospital programs. Besides that, the cost doesn't seem high compared
to addiction's drain on people and society. Almost 10 percent of the
B.C. government's budget is spent on substance abuse and problem
gambling, according to a 2005 drug-policy report by the City of
Vancouver. That report recommended alternative treatments for drug
dependency, including the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs like
peyote and ayahuasca.

Although ibogaine wasn't mentioned specifically, Zarina Mulla, a city
drug-policy planner and report coauthor, spoke enthusiastically about
it in a phone interview from her office.

"It helps users analyze some of the issues behind the drug abuse.
Perhaps this is the most important thing because you can relapse and
go back to the drug," she commented.

Mulla said alternative approaches are vital at a time when the Harper
government has announced a new Canadian drug policy modelled on the
U.S. police-and-prisons approach, which she called "a
failure...There's such a large amount of money for enforcement [in
the Harper policy] and none for harm reduction and only a little for
prevention and treatment."

Leah Martin, for her part, said she's not holding out hope for any
federal funds for the ibogaine clinic. It did apply once, but was
rejected. "They were looking for teens that do [drug-education]
tables at raves. We were a bit too obscure for them. People generally
don't know about [ibogaine]."

And in the current climate, that's not all bad. "We're lucky ibogaine
is unscheduled [not banned] in Canada. We play our cards so we kind
of stay off the radar."