The National Institute on Drug Abuse has awarded nearly $2.3 million to Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston to test whether ibogaine, a psychedelic from the African iboga shrub, can be given safely to people with opioid use disorder, according to federal grant records. The study's design puts the drug's best-known danger front and center: any dose that stretches the heart's electrical recovery time past a set limit will be treated as too toxic.
Interest in ibogaine is climbing, driven by an April executive order on psychedelic research, new state funding, and veterans' accounts of treatment abroad. But ibogaine remains a Schedule I drug with no accepted medical use in the United States, and no FDA-approved form exists.
