DOCUMENTARY MAKER MAY FILM HIS OWN DEATH

AN ACCLAIMED documentary maker has admitted that he is prepared to die
while filming himself taking a powerful hallucinogenic drug that has been
hailed as a cure for addiction but linked to a number of deaths around the
world.

David Graham Scott, who is based in Glasgow, said that he will take the
controversial drug, ibogaine, in a film that will form the final part of
his trilogy on Scotland's drugs culture. In the documentary, provisionally
titled The Quick Fix, Scott intends to overcome his own methadone
addiction, which he says has plagued him since he stopped using street
heroin and prescribed drugs 15 years ago.

Under the supervision of colleagues who are working to set up an ibogaine
clinic in London, and a recording team, Scott will be filmed next month
undergoing an intense 36-hour hallucinogenic 'trip', from which he hopes to
emerge free from his addiction. Although the substance is legal in the UK,
where it is classed as an unlicensed, experimental drug, there are wider
concerns over its safety. The drug has been banned in the US, Belgium and
Switzerland and experts also say that in recent years ibogaine is known to
have contributed to at least four deaths in Europe.

Last year, a 35-year-old woman died after taking 500mg of the drug during
an informal ibogaine session in Germany. In 2001, an inquest in London into
the case of JW, a 40-year-old heroin addict, ruled that the man had died
principally from a fatal reaction to the drug.

But with advocates of the substance claiming it is a 'magic bullet' for
addicts, the Bafta-nominated film-maker says he now plans to put the claims
to the test and undergo the treatment as an experiment to get himself clean.

He said: 'There is always a chance that there could be some permanent
damage or that it could kill you. But I think the positive factors outweigh
the negative aspects. I have found methadone impossible to come off. I am
doing this because I can't stand being an addict anymore. This will be my
personal story about taking ibogaine.'

The Quick Fix comes after two films in which Scott examined the issue of
drugs and his own reasons for becoming embroiled in Britain's drug culture
in the 1980s. In Little Criminals, Scott spent 1999 filming a group of
heroin addicts in and around Glasgow. The film, distributed internationally
at film festivals by Scottish Screen, also won him a Bafta new talent
nomination last year. Beyond The Highlands, screened by STV in 2002,
attempted to answer the question of why Scott, originally from Caithness,
turned his back on his rural upbringing and embraced Edinburgh's
underground heroin culture.

'This will be a film that shows how the daily routines that an addict has
to face demeans them. I also want this to open up the debate about how
society treats addicts and to ask questions about alternatives to the
methadone programme,' explained Scott.

'There is ample evidence that ibogaine treatment works and that should be
explored further. If I make this film and find that it does work there are
serious questions that the government is required to answer about its
current drug policy. If anything goes wrong, it will be my sole
responsibility.'

Scott, now 41, said he first began researching the effects of ibogaine in
the mid-1990s. However, with the only legitimate detox programmes available
in a limited number of countries, including Panama, Costa Rica and Italy,
and costing thousands of pounds, it was not a feasible option. His
unofficial ibogaine detox will cost him just under UKP500.

Once under the effects of the drug, extracted from the root bark of a west
African plant and used in spiritual rituals in parts of Gabon, Scott hopes
to re-evaluate his life experiences. Less than one gram of ibogaine is said
to produce stimulant and aphrodisiac effects. Up to three grams produces a
mellow euphoric trip during which the user may experience various
hallucinations. Up to six grams, the maximum safe dosage, produces powerful
near-death experiences.

Those taking the highest doses of ibogaine report that they first enter a
dream-like phase that lasts several hours and consists of vivid visions of
past memories. The second consists of high levels of analytical mental
activity to comprehend the reasons why they drifted into drug-using.

However, Deborah Mash, a professor of neurology at the University of Miami,
a world authority on ibogaine, warned of the dangers of taking the drug
outwith a strictly regulated environment.

'It should only be taken in the presence of trained medical staff who can
administer drugs or revive someone if they get into difficulty.'