Dear Colleagues,
We write as a collective of practitioners, researchers, clinicians, and integration specialists with direct, long-term experience working with iboga and ibogaine across a range of settings. The growing interest in ibogaine within the United States — including public investment, emerging clinical pathways, and public-private partnerships — represents a meaningful shift in how this modality is understood and delivered at scale. We recognize the work being done to bring greater awareness, safety, and legitimacy to something that has long existed at the margins. It is precisely because this moment carries such consequence that we feel compelled to speak directly.
What the evidence actually shows
Across our collective experience, one pattern has remained consistent: ibogaine may interrupt entrenched thought and behavioral patterns and open a window of clarity that is otherwise difficult to access. But the experience alone does not determine long-term outcomes. What appears decisive, again and again, is not the event itself but the conditions surrounding it — the depth and quality of preparation, the relational and environmental context, and the presence or absence of sustained integration afterward. When these are minimized, sidelined, or treated as secondary, initial gains rarely stabilize in any meaningful way.
As ibogaine enters formal systems of care, we observe a growing divergence in delivery models. Some prioritize scale and standardization. Others emphasize preparation, relational continuity, and long-term integration. Both respond to real demand, but outcomes differ significantly depending on which values actually shape the structure of care.
On pharmacological reductionism
We are concerned by the growing tendency to frame ibogaine in evangelical or reductive terms — as a singular “reset,” an inherently self-sufficient intervention, or a molecule capable of doing the work that preparation, relationship, and integration actually perform. These narratives are not merely inaccurate; they are structurally dangerous. They place the burden of recovery on the compound itself while obscuring the wider relational and existential process that shapes whether gains endure. In practice, ibogaine is catalytic, destabilizing, and highly contingent. Rapid interruption of withdrawal is a real and important effect for some individuals. It is not a treatment arc.
The inflation of pharmacological narratives serves a particular interest: it makes ibogaine legible to biomedical and commercial frameworks that prefer a clean, scalable, proprietary mechanism. But it does so at the cost of accuracy, and at the cost of the people entering care with expectations that the molecule alone cannot meet.
On protocol gaps and clinical competency
Current structures advancing ibogaine development in the United States include only a limited number of individuals with genuine depth of real-world experience — experience that encompasses condition-specific protocols (traumatic brain injury versus substance use disorder, for example), substance-specific considerations (long versus short-acting opioids, alcohol, amphetamines), cardiovascular risk stratification, and the less codifiable but equally important dimensions of set, setting, relational attunement, and integration support.
This is not a peripheral concern. Thorough screening, enhanced informed consent, realistic expectation-setting, and clear boundaries around what this work can responsibly offer are not advanced features to be added later — they are the floor of ethical practice. Ibogaine carries real risk. Its window of therapeutic potential is narrow and context-dependent. The gap between what clinical frameworks are being built and what experienced practitioners know to be necessary is not a refinement problem; it is a safety problem.
A significant proportion of those seeking ibogaine treatment are first responders and military veterans, often arriving with complex trauma, TBI, and moral injury after being underserved by institutional care. For these populations, relational holding is foundational – not optional – and without it, high-throughput, depersonalized models risk replicating the very disconnection they are trying to heal, carrying both clinical and ethical consequences.
On intellectual property, biopiracy, and the ethics of extraction
Ibogaine is a naturally occurring compound with a long and documented history of traditional and sacramental use. As it moves into formal development pathways — with growing interest in intellectual property frameworks, proprietary formulations, and downstream commercial stakes — questions of ownership, access, and benefit distribution are no longer abstract. They are already taking shape, and they are doing so in ways that demand explicit accountability.
Gabon is the country of origin and long-standing sacramental custodian of iboga. Iboga is not only a biological resource, but also a pillar of cultural and spiritual heritage in Gabon, embedded in traditional knowledge systems that must be fully recognized and protected. That is not a background fact to be acknowledged once and set aside — it is a foundational ethical reality that must actively structure how ibogaine is researched, developed, owned, and commercialized. This means meaningful participation by Gabonese institutions and communities in research design and intellectual property development, fair benefit-sharing agreements negotiated at the outset — not as an afterthought — and genuine, ongoing engagement with the forest-dwelling and land-connected communities who have carried this knowledge across generations.
Despite a recent visit by Americans for Ibogaine (AFI) to Gabon and engagement with federal authorities there, free, prior informed consent has not been obtained from traditional communities. There is a growing and warranted sense of exclusion — no defined reciprocity, no royalties, no negotiated terms. While the United States is not a signatory to the Nagoya Protocol, the ethical framework it enshrines is not optional. The 2024 WIPO Treaty on Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge makes clear that any entity advancing biotechnology derived from traditional medicines must secure free, prior informed consent, negotiate benefit-sharing agreements with traditional communities before projects advance, and include traditional knowledge into development. Non-signatory status is not a legal exemption — it is a political choice, and it will be legible as such.
The pattern being established now — in which Western institutions claim legitimacy over a medicine while its origins are acknowledged only symbolically — is not new. It is the structure of extraction dressed in the language of medicine. Naming it clearly is not obstructionism; it is a precondition for any development pathway that intends to be ethical rather than merely legal.
On the gap between principle and structure
We anticipate that much of what is written here may be met with agreement at the level of principle. That is precisely the problem. In emerging treatment systems, public agreement has too often functioned as a substitute for structural change. The gap between what is acknowledged and what is actually built is not incidental — it is one of the central problems now taking shape around ibogaine, and it is already visible.
What is visible: the minimization of preparation and integration in scaled delivery models. The inflation of pharmacological narratives — efficacy claims stripped of context — that serve commercial legibility over clinical accuracy. The premature normalization of proprietary and institutional control over a medicine that belongs to no Western entity. The exclusion thus far of experienced practitioners from advisory and design roles. The use of ethical language without clear accountability to the communities and territories from which this knowledge emerges. These are not risks on the horizon. They are present conditions.
What we are asking for
We are not opposing medicalization. We are refusing the premise that medicalization, scale, or institutional legitimacy are inherently synonymous with integrity. They are not. The former can be achieved while the latter is systematically undermined, and the history of pharmaceutical development gives us no shortage of examples.
What we are asking for is structural, not rhetorical. Preparation and integration must be essential components of care — not optional add-ons stripped out by cost or scale pressures. Ibogaine facilitation models must address relational, psychological, and existential dimensions alongside pharmacological ones. Longitudinal follow-up must be built into program design from the outset. Experiential and traditional knowledge must actively inform clinical and policy frameworks from the outset, not merely be cited in preambles. And benefit-sharing, consent, and reciprocity with Gabon and its traditional communities must be embedded at the foundation of any development pathway — not deferred until commercial interests are already entrenched.
At this stage, how ibogaine is formalized may prove as consequential as whether it is formalized at all. The decisions being made now — about ownership, about protocols, about who is centered and who is consulted — will shape what this field becomes for decades. There is still a window to address these issues constructively, but it is narrowing quickly. In Gabon, the issue of full consultation and reciprocity is beginning to reach national-level attention, which is likely to accelerate a response from the highest levels of government.
In summary, we make two requests:
- We ask that Gabonese authorities be granted time to finalise their strategy and legal framework for participation in the development of iboga and ibogaine-based therapies.
- We urge AFI and US State and University initiatives to engage formally and substantively with the existing community of practice, both clinical and traditional, in order to draw on the decades of accumulated knowledge to help ensure that ibogaine therapy is delivered safely and effectively.
This letter is offered in the spirit of clarity, shared responsibility, and public record. A French language version of the letter has also been prepared for full participation among Gabonese organisations and stakeholders.
Respectfully,
Anders Beatty, Ibogaine Coaching Services and Awake net
Jeremy Weate, Global Iboga Therapy Alliance (GITA)
Tobias Erny, Global Iboga Therapy Alliance (GITA)
Ryan “Ghenigho” Rich, Root Healing, Bassé Root
Adam Penkul, Iboga Insight
Andrew Tatarsky, PhD, Integrative Harm Reduction Psychotherapy
Jevon Nally, The Living Lodge, SPC. Residential Aftercare Center
Asha Caravelli, Ibogaine Practitioner, Awakening in the Dream, Doula, EKR Foundation Mexico Centro, Alumni Member
Thom Leonard, Anzelmo Ibogaine Center/ Ibogaine Institute
Paul Featherstone, Veteran Ibogaine facilitator and consultant
Ian Potapoff, Botanical Extraction Specialist, Whispering Wings / Ibogaine Advocate
Lakshmi Narayan, President, Awake.net, an entheogenic noosphere
Tricia Eastman, Cofounder, Ancestral Heart nonprofit + Bwiti initiated traditional practitioner
Sidsel Marie, PhD-fellow specialised in iboga and ibogaine, University of Bergen
Dr. Joseph Peter Barsuglia, Ibogaine researcher, Advisor to Beond, The Mission Within, Lionheart Ventures, Delphi Circle, Ancestral Heart nonprofit, Bwiti initiated traditional practitioner
Lori Shindel, Ibogaine consultant, Global Iboga Therapy Alliance (GITA)
Yann Guignon, Blessings Of The Forest (President) & Maghanga Ma Nzambé (Ambassador) – Gabon NGOs dedicated to Cultural/Natural Conservation & Advocacy – WIPO Observer
Garyth Moxey, Inner Realms Center
Blair Bromley, Inner Realms Center
Svea Nielsen, Psychologist and Facilitator, nemus.life
Andrew White, former Special Operations Forces veteran, Addiction and PTSD survivor.
Andrew “Horse” Hudson, Former Special Operations Forces veteran, ibogaine advocate and documentary filmmaker
Ian MacKenna, Red Feather Sciences + Bwiti Initiate
Mark and Robyn Howard, Ibogasoul Shamanic Healing
Taylor “Moupetou” Albamonti, Muanga Benda Missoko Bwiti Church
Troy Valencia, Founder of Sacred Roots Foundation 501(c)(3), Iboga Provider, 2 x Bwiti Initiate
Joaly Trinidad, Founder of Sacred Roots Foundation 501(c)(3
Karen Story, Ibogaine Preparation and Integration Coach
Barry Rossinoff, IbogaQuest, founder
Reilly Smith, Seeds of Change
Cedar Rayne, Iboga facilitator and Coach
Iwan Morgan, Bwiti Nganga
Bodhi Chapman More, Bwiti Nganga Student
Hugues Obiang Poitevin aka TataYo, Co- founder of Ebando association (Present in the Gabon’s associative world with Oneto, Odimbossoukou & Rengouwa since 1981)
Dylan Geoffrey, Partner of the Association for the Peoples of Waka (APW)
Elizabeth Bast MOUGHEESI, Maboundi Nganga (healer) & ceremony facilitator
Chor Boogie GNYANGOU, Bwiti Nganga (healer) & ceremony facilitator
Ngondet na Dipouma, Founder of Yaou Yaou Wellness, Maboundi na Moudanga Bwiti Initiate
Kristie Jacobsen, Ibogaine Practitioner, Founder, Casa-Well
Noah Lara, Co-founder, Root + Ritual
Christopher Laurence, Ibogaine provider, consultant
Fernando Vega, MD
Lindsey White, Preparation and integration coach, VETS and Ambio
Mathieu Soulignac, Science communicator in anthropology, Bwiti initiate
Reed Wirthman, Founder Threshold Bioscience
