The bill passed the House in March. If signed into law by Governor Kevin Stitt (R), it will mark a significant shift in Oklahoma’s approach to the ongoing crises around mental health and substance use disorders. It would authorize the State Department of Health to enter into contracts with drug developers to conduct extensive, state-monitored clinical trials for ibogaine-based therapeutics. Lawmakers who championed the bill argue that traditional treatment methods have consistently fallen short, necessitating a research-driven exploration of breakthrough therapies.

The legislation is also designed to facilitate collaboration with other states currently conducting similar clinical research, creating a multistate consortium aimed at securing federal regulatory approval.

Ibogaine is derived from the root bark of the iboga shrub. For decades, the compound has shown observational promise in interrupting severe substance use disorders—particularly opioids—and alleviating post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries. However, because ibogaine is federally classified as a Schedule I controlled substance, it remains illegal to possess, distribute or administer outside of highly restricted research settings. This has seen desperate patients seek unregulated and costly treatments abroad.

Proponents of the bill stress that it would bring the treatment out of the unregulated shadows and into highly controlled medical environments.

Ibogaine use for these purposes is not without controversy or risk. There are well-documented medical hazards, most notably the potential for severe cardiac complications, which have led to efforts to develop safer versions of the compound. There are also risks around resumed opioid use with lowered tolerance if ibogaine is used for withdrawal and abstinence.

Recognizing these issues, proponents of the Oklahoma bill stress that state-sponsored clinical trials would bring the treatment out of the unregulated shadows and into highly controlled medical environments. Under the proposed framework, patients would undergo rigorous pre-treatment medical evaluations and receive the drug under continuous monitoring by medical professionals.

To mitigate financial risk to the state and seek a high standard of research, the bill imposes requirements on participating drug developers. Any drug developer contracting with the health department would have to match the state’s financial investment in the trials dollar-for-dollar. Developers would additionally be required to submit a detailed plan for obtaining approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, along with protocols for trial participant recruitment, patient screening criteria, safety, and post-acute treatment support.

The bill also mandates that drug developers prioritize treatment access for Oklahoma residents once FDA approval is secured. And the legislation requires a plan to protect the state’s economic interest in any intellectual property generated. The idea is that if the trials yield a profitable, FDA-approved therapeutic, funds will come back to the state.

The legislation establishes a dedicated revolving fund to capture any proceeds. By law, this money could only be utilized for programs or further research that directly benefit at-risk Oklahomans with conditions treatable by ibogaine. The bill grants medical professionals professional immunity too, shielding them from adverse licensing actions by state medical boards for recommending these trials to their patients.

“This initiative was led by a grassroots effort, employed no lobbyists, and focused on education through truly lived experiences.”

The passage of House Bill 3834 through the Senate represents a major victory for a coalition of patient advocates, veterans and others. These groups have spent months sharing deeply personal stories of addiction, trauma and recovery with state lawmakers, aiming to demystify ibogaine and highlight its potential.

“Oklahoma for Ibogaine is celebrating the passing of HB 3834 through the Senate,” Nate Morgans, an Oklahoma-based psychedelics advocate and CEO of the Casey Skudin 343 Fund, told Filter. “Our team has worked tirelessly since December to educate, inform, and persuade Oklahoma legislators on the importance of authorizing and funding FDA clinical trials of Ibogaine. This initiative was led by a grassroots effort, employed no lobbyists, and focused on education through truly lived experiences. Our success today serves as a testament to what can be accomplished with determined hearts.”

In recent months, other state legislatures have begun viewing ibogaine research as a pragmatic health care response. In March, for instance, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) signed similar legislation. The Mississippi law authorizes the state to form a consortium to conduct ibogaine clinical trials in direct coordination with other participating states—most notably neighboring Texas, which has already committed substantial funding to psychedelic research.

While Mississippi’s new law establishes the legal and administrative framework for the clinical trials, the new law does not currently appropriate state general funds toward the program. However, state lawmakers have indicated their intent to allocate a portion of the state’s federal opioid settlement funds to support the initiative. Advocates are divided over such uses of money that could otherwise be funding under-resourced harm reduction efforts.

State efforts to establish ibogaine clinical trials have not been uniformly successful. In April, a similar bill in West Virginia was derailed, after Gov. Patrick Morrisey (R) vetoed it.

The bill would have established a state grant program to fund ibogaine drug development trials. It passed the state legislature, but Morrisey cited fiscal concerns in his veto message. Before killing the bill in the hours leading up to the state’s legislative deadline, he said that while he supports this medical innovation in principle, “we should do so without requiring the state to award grants of undefined and unfunded amounts.”

“This bill is more than a policy change—it offers real hope to so many people who desperately need it.”

Despite such setbacks and controversies, advocates for ibogaine access and development remain optimistic about growing national momentum.

“This bill is more than a policy change—it offers real hope to so many people who desperately need it,” Chase Rowan told Filter of the Oklahoma bill. A US Army Ranger veteran, Rowan serves as both the veteran coordinator for Texans for Greater Mental Health and the director of Community Engagement & Advocacy for Americans for Ibogaine.

It’s a development that will “offer hope” to veterans and their families, including those impacted by substance use disorders, he said, and who have “tried every conventional method known to man, with no success.”

“Hello, Ibogaine, now we have an answer,” Rowan continued, “a real legitimate answer, something we can study, a medicine that will help so many people find true healing. Exciting things to come in the world of healing.”

The Oklahoma Breakthrough Therapy Act now heads to Gov. Stitt’s desk, where it remains to be seen if it will be signed into law.   

Photograph of Oklahoma Senate chamber by Oklahoma Legislative Services Bureau via Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

The post Oklahoma Senate Advances Research-Focused Ibogaine Bill appeared first on Filter.

CBS News reported on April 16 that while the administration doesn’t plan to reschedule the psychedelic out of Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) at this time, the move is “meant to open the door to federal funding for further research on its effectiveness with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries, especially among veterans.”

The outlet said that while officials are still in the process of drafting the executive order’s provisions, the aim is to help determine whether ibogaine is what one source described as “snake oil” or is instead a legitimate treatment.

Citing two sources, CBS reported that the president’s move could come within days.

Early research and experience indicates that ibogaine can help people with post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries and substance use disorder.

Lawmakers in a number of states have passed legislation to support clinical trials with the aim of developing ibogaine into a legal medication with approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Texas officials, for example, recently announced that the state will move ahead with launching its own research program on the psychedelic after it couldn’t find a company to lead a consortium on the issue under a bill enacted in 2025.

The reportedly planned federal move on ibogaine comes nearly four months after Trump issued an executive order directing the Department of Justice to complete the process of moving marijuana from Schedule I of the CSA to Schedule III “in the most expeditious manner”—though that still hasn’t happened.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has said his agency is “absolutely committed” to expanding psychedelic research.

Meanwhile, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said in February that the Trump administration is “very anxious” to create a pathway for access to psychedelics therapy and that top officials across federal agencies want to “get it out to the public as quickly as possible.”

In an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience, Kennedy said he’s confident “we’re going to get it done,” with plans to develop and finalize rules that would enable patients with conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression to access psychedelic substances like psilocybin and MDMA in a “very controlled setting.”

“Everybody in my agency … is very anxious to get a rule out there that will allow these kind of studies and will allow access under therapeutic settings, particularly [for] the military soldiers who have suffered these injuries to get access to these products,” the HHS secretary said. “We’re working through that process now. We’re all working on it and trying to make it happen.”

“I think that we’re going to get it done,” he said.

In June 2025, Kennedy said his agency is “absolutely committed” to expanding research on the benefits of psychedelic therapy and, alongside of the head of the FDA, is aiming to provide legal access to such substances for military veterans “within 12 months.”

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Doug Collins also disclosed in April that he had an “eye-opening” talk with Kennedy about the therapeutic potential of psychedelic medicine. And he said he’s open to the idea of having the government provide vouchers to cover the costs of psychedelic therapy for veterans who receive services outside of VA as Congress considers pathways for access.

Bipartisan congressional lawmakers introduced legislation this session to provide $30 million in funding annually to establish psychedelic-focused “centers for excellence” at VA facilities, where veterans could receive novel treatment involving substances like psilocybin, MDMA and ibogaine.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R) has said ibogaine represents an “astonishing breakthrough” in the nation’s current “sick care system” where people with serious mental health conditions have been left without access to promising alternative treatment options.

Photograph of Tabernanthe iboga by Scamperdale via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0

This story was originally published by Marijuana Moment, which tracks the politics and policy of cannabis and drugs. Follow Marijuana Moment on X and Facebook, and sign up for its newsletter.

The post Trump Reportedly About to Issue Executive Order on Ibogaine Research appeared first on Filter.

In May 2023, former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R) and his special counsel Bryan Hubbard unveiled the “Kentucky Ibogaine Initiative.” Its goals were to help develop legal, regulated ibogaine therapy in the state for substance use disorder and mental health conditions like PTSD, and to potentially speed up United States Food and Drug Administration approval.

At the time, Hubbard was chair of the Kentucky Opioid Addiction Abatement Advisory Commission (KYOAAC), responsible for allocating $842 million of settlement money received through nationwide lawsuits against opioid manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies. The Kentucky Ibogaine Initiative proposed allocating $42 million of that total toward bringing ibogaine treatment to the state.

“Vocal opposition to our endeavor was confined to two contrary voices that occupy significant centers of power.”

Cameron’s campaign as the Republican nominee in Kentucky’s November 2023 gubernatorial election added visibility to this effort. But Kentucky voters re-elected Andy Beshear (D) to a second term as governor. They also voted in new Attorney General Russell Coleman (R) to replace Cameron.

According to Psychedelic Alpha, Coleman then asked Hubbard to resign from the KYOAAC, and replaced him with former high-level Drug Enforcement Administration official D. Christopher Evans.

The Lexington Herald-Leader quoted Coleman as saying, “There’s been a lot of ink spilled on ibogaine,” and that Kentucky needed to focus more on addiction prevention. A resignation letter from Hubbard, dated December 26 and reviewed by Psychedelic Alpha, stated: “[V]ocal opposition to our endeavor was confined to two contrary voices that occupy significant centers of power”—which he named as Gov. Beshear and the University of Kentucky Center on Drug and Alcohol Research.

Ibogaine is derived from the shrub Tabernanthe iboga, native to West Central Africa. The powerful hallucinogen has a long tradition of use, including for spiritual practices, among Indigenous groups in the region.

Research has substantiated the drug’s efficacy for opioid use disorder, at least over a limited period of time. However, there are real concerns over risks for people who become abstinent after ibogaine treatment, then later resume opioid use without tolerance, as Carlyn Zwarenstein recently reported for Filter.

“This is a treatment for wealthy individuals who can pay for hospitalization with intensive monitoring.”

In the US, ibogaine is categorized as a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law; it’s illegal for any use, including medical. A handful of other countries, including Mexico, Brazil, South Africa and the Netherlands, do allow its use, and it’s available on prescription in Australia and New Zealand.

Particularly when used in unregulated settings, the drug can pose risks, including heart problems, to certain people. For this reason, organizations like the Global Iboga Therapy Alliance publish detailed guidelines on safer provision and use for people with different medical histories and drug-use patterns.

In Kentucky, concerns about the drug’s safety profile divided some experts as the KYOAAC held public hearings throughout 2023. Ibogaine users and their families, military veterans, doctors and mental health practitioners, and even high-profile figures like an NBA player and a former Texas governor, all presented testimony. In October, Dr. Mark Haigney, a Walter Reed National Military Medical Center physician, argued that ibogaine would not be FDA-approved and safe for use for at least another 10 years, because of its effects on the cardiac system.

“This is a treatment for wealthy individuals who can pay for hospitalization with intensive monitoring,” he told the commission, and would not help people “who struggle with opioid dependence.”

Harm reductionist Dmitri Mugianis, who once received ibogaine treatment for substance use disorder and also became an underground provider, has been another critic of the Kentucky plan—for its focus on post-treatment abstinence; because “it won’t move the needle” on the overdose crisis, as he previously told Filter; and because it would divert precious funds from other areas.

“It is crucial to allocate resources towards evidence-based practices that are proven to improve and save lives while addressing the specific needs of the affected communities,” Mugianis wrote in a Courier Journal op-ed in December. “Instead of diverting funds to an exotic research project, they should be utilized to address pressing issues for drug users and people in recovery, such as housing, education, transportation, job training, overdose prevention and access to medication assisted treatments.”

“It raised awareness nationally and brought a lot of interest that the movement can build on.”

Another harm reduction expert reached by Filter described the Kentucky initiative, though stalled for now, as successful in bringing national attention to the issue and galvanizing support. Psychologist Andrew Tatarsky, a leading proponent of harm reduction psychotherapy and psychedelic-assisted therapy, believes the visibility in Kentucky will encourage other states to pursue ibogaine therapy more boldly.

Kentucky’s process “had hearings that brought together an amazing, diverse group of advocates including veterans, their families, researchers, clinicians, to testify on behalf of the value of ibogaine,” he said. “The overwhelming majority of the testimony was positive and compelling. It raised awareness nationally and brought a lot of interest that the movement can build on.”

Dr. Tatarsky acknowledged that there is a legitimate and unresolved debate over how much of the opioid settlement money now flowing into state coffers, if any, should be used for such projects.

“There are mixed opinions about the use of opioid abatement settlement funds for research, because that is unlikely to bear fruit for many years, and many more millions that need to be raised,” he said. “It’s an uncertain future … Some people feel the people suffering … should have funds put to much more immediately helpful measures like increased naloxone, test strips, overdose prevention sites, harm reduction services and counseling.”

Besides the debate over use of opioid settlement funds, there are other concerns around any ibogaine program moving too quickly. Kevin Franciotti, founder of Psychedelics in Recovery and a recipient of ibgoaine treatment for opioid use disorder in 2011, warned of consequences if governments—and the media—are quick to publicize the benefits of ibogaine without adequate public education. These could include, he said, misleading people about potentially dangerous or life-threatening side effects of unregulated ibogaine use, and negative environmental and social impacts on African nations where the plant grows.

“People will be compelled to seek out personal ibogaine treatments on their own,” he told Filter, “and there is a thriving market of people involved in the illicit drug trade and even the animal poaching trade in Africa that are tearing up wild-grown iboga to meet the demand of people who learned about ibogaine from a sensationalized story, then seek out Facebook vendors to buy things from.”

Photograph of Tabernanthe iboga by Ji-Elle via WikiMedia/Creative Commons 4.0

The post Kentucky Shelves Plan to Use Opioid Settlement Cash for Ibogaine Pilot appeared first on Filter.

In the midst of a devastating overdose crisis, the need for effective, tolerable and well-evidenced treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) has never been higher. Incredibly, there is a plant, the shrub iboga, or Tabernanthe iboga, alkaloids in the roots of which seem to have a remarkable ability to interrupt addiction and ease withdrawal.

“It was one of the most significant transformative experiences in my life,” Kevin Franciotti told Filter. He received treatment with ibogaine hydrochloride, the extract of this plant, for heroin addiction in 2011. “There are moments in your life that you think about every day, that you carry with you every day, and my ibogaine treatment certainly fits that standard.”

Ibogaine is currently illegal in the United States. That could change. But in a society where ability to pay, racial and class disparities, and deep stigma interact intensely, the exact way it rolls out and who is responsible will determine who—and whether—it helps.

Meanwhile, could the attraction of ibogaine for OUD damagingly distract from the vital need to improve access to methadone and buprenorphine, OUD medications proven to reduce mortality—or even from advocacy for safer opioid supply?

As an extract of the bark of the iboga root, ibogaine, a tryptamine, appears to have the ability to substantially reduce withdrawal symptoms while providing insight or psychological relief for the feelings that may perpetuate OUD. It also seems to reduce the desire to use other drugs, and to help people seeking abstinence to maintain it for months or, with a second dose, even years.

Tabernanthe iboga is native to West Central Africa, mostly Gabon and Cameroon, and has been used by the Mbiri and Bwiti tribes, among others, for centuries. High doses induce hallucinations in religious rites, while low doses have been used against hunger, fatigue and thirst.

Although it’s a hallucinogen, ibogaine doesn’t work on the usual brain receptor targeted by psychedelics. It’s an oneiric, or dream-inducer, causing intense waking visions that only appear when the user’s eyes are closed.

Ibogaine was isolated from the iboga root in 1901, and used in the West in the early 1900s to treat general weakness and as a neuromuscular stimulant. By 1955, researchers at the US Addiction Research Center in Lexington were trying it out on already-detoxified morphine users.

“My body feels washed in a cleansing energetic blanket that completely removes the physical discomfort I’m feeling after 36 hours without heroin.”

But ibogaine’s first prominent use in this country was by a man named Howard Lotsof, who at 19 was addicted to heroin and tried ibogaine in search of a new high. Instead, he quit drugs altogether, becoming an advocate for ibogaine treatment and the father of the “Lotsof method” still practiced by American-run ibogaine clinics.

This method of quick detoxification through ibogaine emphasizes individual attention. Administration requires, Lotsof himself wrote as recently as 2009, “art, craft, and practice,” and “each person treated and each experience has unique characteristics that must be observed and responded to uniquely.”

Ibogaine prohibition began in 1967; the FDA classed it as a Schedule I drug in 1970. Yet in 1986, Lotsof was awarded a patent for its use in opioid withdrawal. Later patents expanded its indications to dependence on cocaine and other stimulants, alcohol, nicotine and finally for “polysubstance abuse.”

Its US legal status makes ibogaine challenging to use as a treatment, and challenging to research. But ibogaine is being used legally by Americans right now. Those with mobility and money are able to access it as a treatment for OUD—plus everything from alcohol, benzodiazepine or nicotine withdrawal to depression and stress. This happens at clinics in Mexico and other countries with different rules. Americans working with local staff in Mexican clinics, particularly, hope to bring legal ibogaine treatment over the border.

Research substantiates the assertion that ibogaine has some remarkable properties for the treatment of addiction.

“My body feels washed in a cleansing energetic blanket that completely removes the physical discomfort I’m feeling after 36 hours without heroin,” wrote Franciotti in 2015 testimony for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) about his treatment, which was part of a 2011 MAPS clinical trial. Franciotti is now a psychotherapist and harm reduction advocate who has also written for Filter.

The easing of opioid withdrawal symptoms is just one of ibogaine’s relevant properties.

It was sold in France for many years as Lambarène, an antidepressant and stimulant post-infection or in cases of fatigue, before being removed from the market due to adverse effects (of which, more later). It has a profound impact on structural neuroplasticity in the brain’s cortex.

It’s a Luxury Treatment

Ibogaine Clinic and Research Center is a private facility of the type Franciotti first attended in northern Mexico, but located further south, at a spa-like beach resort in gorgeous, sunny Playa del Carmen, in the state of Quintana Roo.

American founder David Dardashti’s colorful history, according to his LinkedIn profile, includes being cantor at the United Synagogue in Palm Beach, developing shopping malls in Florida, studying ethnomusicology, and “healing 7,000 individuals” (his clinic website states that 3,000 patients have undergone its “life-changing ibogaine retreat, rehab and detox experience”).

The center offers ibogaine hydrochloride-assisted treatment for a remarkably wide range of indications: Suboxone dependence, sexual trauma and eating disorders are listed, as well as “executive burnout” and “chakra alignment” (according to the website, Dardasthi treats himself once a year for “anti-aging purposes”).

Although this is just one of dozens of ibogaine clinics, its rhetoric and claims—even the offbeat life history of its founder—might be viewed as fairly typical. Its website freely mixes references to peer-reviewed scientific papers, New Age language and the promise of a detox experience that is easy but potent, safe but life-changing, specialized yet responsive to practically any condition, offered by staff trained at “prestigious institutions.”

You can see a similar presentation—with a bit less New Age language but not without far-reaching claims, massage, and nutraceuticals pre- and post-treatment—at Clear Sky Recovery, in Cancun, Mexico. The facility boasts founders including Dr. Deborah Mash, a scientist who held the first FDA approval for clinical testing of ibogaine on humans with substance use disorder, and who remains perhaps the most prominent advocate for its medical use.

Dr. Mash did not respond to interview requests, but Filter spoke by video call with Ibogaine Clinic and Research Center’s operations director, Cole Barressi.

Barressi described ibogaine as a substance that touches the subconscious, making events, including traumas and shame going back to childhood, run like a picture reel through patients’ minds.

“The brain is firing again on all cylinders after arriving in treatment, and in the long term it’s not something that wears off.”

“We do use it for every substance,” he said. “There’s a proper protocol for everything … our protocols are much different now depending on what they’re on. Even alcohol looks much different from opioids, stimulants—Adderall, methamphetamines. Cocaine is much different than the others. We’re treating people for neurological disorders, bipolar, schizophrenia, early stages of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, neuropathy.”

Barressi claimed that nerve pain is cured 100 percent of the time, while for dementia, the clinic can guarantee a 65 percent better lifestyle. “It’s a drastic improvement where … most people actually are declining at a rapid pace.”

He also claimed that the therapeutic effects can be permanent: “What we do know is that the brain is firing again on all cylinders after arriving in treatment, and that in the long term it’s not something that wears off.”

Unlikely though it sounds—and indeed, there is no solid evidence to date that ibogaine is an effective treatment for aging, nor indications like Alzheimer’s, despite initial findings that it acts on a particular brain receptor implicated in this and other diseases—ibogaine does indeed offer the possibility of finally having an effective medication-based treatment for addictions to substances other than opioids, such as cocaine or nicotine.

“We do have options particularly for [opioid] use disorder and then to a lesser extent a few for alcohol use disorder, but we have nothing for stimulants. Benzodiazepines are brutal [to withdraw from] and the illicit drug market is constantly changing,” Franciotti noted.

However, while anecdotal reports exist, there is currently little evidence, particularly human clinical trial evidence, supporting ibogaine for treatment of benzodiazepine or methamphetamine use disorders.

At Ibogaine Clinic and Research Center, different substances, conditions and protocols come with different costs. For “stress management optimization” for “high-functioning executives,” professional athletes, singers and others, a four-day treatment costs approximately $6,500, roughly in line with similar clinics.

All of this is financially out of reach for most people.

An eight-day program for someone “in psychosis, completely disconnected from reality” due to excessive cannabis smoking along with antidepressants or other psychiatric medication—Barressi’s example—might involve two ibogaine treatments at $9,500.

The center also offers to help people to quit effective, relatively cheap OUD treatments that are demonstrated to prevent death.

A program involving withdrawal from buprenorphine, methadone, fentanyl or other opioids might involve three treatments, 10-to-12 days in the clinic, and a cool $11,500-$13,000.

Some treatments, such as for dementia, might require a month-long stay.

All of this is financially out of reach for most people. The clinic does offer discounted rates for repeat guests, and Barressi, whose commitment to his patients is palpable—he postponed the interview twice to attend to new arrivals—said he’d be delighted if they could work with insurers to reduce costs to patients (or to the parents who often foot the bill for younger clients). 

It’s Often Tied to Abstinence

One of the advantages of ibogaine is that it’s not an ongoing treatment. However, it’s not clear just how long its effects may be relied upon, which poses important questions about the safety of the technique.

People who use opioids will have lowered tolerance if they become abstinent; in a dangerous, unregulated opioid market, they run a high risk of overdose if they return to use.

A mentee of Howard Lotsof and an early underground provider of ibogaine in the early 2000s, New York City harm reductionist Dimitri Mugianis has since become highly critical of forms of ibogaine advocacy that he sees as putting people at risk through a focus on abstinence.

“The vast majority of people go back to using, making them susceptible to overdose, but also to a lot of shaming.”

“These folks who would call themselves harm reductionists are actually operating from an abstinence-based place,” he told Filter in a video interview. “That’s the only measure of success, particularly with ibogaine and opiates. So you go through an arduous process, which sort of interrupts the addiction … a lot of cases you go through hell and then … the vast majority of people go back to using, making them susceptible to overdose, but also susceptible to a lot of shaming.”

Mugianis himself received successful ibogaine treatment in the Netherlands in 2002, for addiction to substances including heroin and cocaine. “Then you look at a lot of people’s lives and the least of their problems is the actual drug use,” he said. “There’s structural issues.”

Franciotti, whose first ibogaine treatment took place in 2011, began using heroin again in 2017, following his father’s sudden death. He avoided overdose and ultimately self-tapered back to abstinence.

Faced with another family tragedy in 2022, Franciotti felt that it was only a matter of time before he risked resuming heroin use. To preempt this, he took part in a traditional iboga grief ceremony in Costa Rica, and is once again doing well.

Franciotti, who advocates for US ibogaine access, is acutely conscious of how expense, as well as laws, impede this, although he does see value in intensive programs or rituals accompanying ibogaine use.

“It’s complicated, particularly in the United States,” he said, “because when I imagine what it would actually take to bring a medicine like ibogaine into a regulated environment, we’re no longer talking about, you know, a $30,000 stay at a 30-day inpatient facility. We’re talking about $30,000 a week.”

It’s a “Dirty Drug”

Ibogaine is “a dirty drug because it activates or inhibits a bunch of different receptors especially in the central nervous system,” Brian Shoichet told Filter. A professor in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California-San Francisco, Shoichet seeks out new methods of drug discovery by synthesizing molecules and modeling the way biological molecules work together.

Dirty, when applied to drugs in this context, isn’t a pejorative term; for toxicologists and others, it just describes how ibogaine works on our kappa-opioid receptors, on our nicotine receptors and on one of our serotonin receptors, among other targets.

This property, technically called polypharmacology—promiscuous is another term applied non-pejoratively—may be helpful to treat conditions that involve behaviors, like depression, schizophrenia or, yes, addiction. But these drugs are hard to dose correctly because of great variability in how different people metabolize them.

Ibogaine has additional major drawbacks. It may be neurotoxic, is definitely cardiotoxic, and has been associated with deaths—although very few, relatively speaking, and with “advanced preexisting medical comorbidities” often present in those cases.

Of greatest concern is its risk to the heart, particularly by causing arrhythmias. At the Dardashti clinic, according to the website, they screen for cardiac risk and spend a lot of time checking people’s cardiac response.

“Ibogaine is a really exciting molecule that teaches us a lot, and you can develop molecules that are more selective.”

It’s a measure that Shoichet doesn’t think would be adequate, partly because the cardiac risk comes from ibogaine’s effect on a particular potassium ion channel in the heart, not something you can test for. This ion channel poses a particular problem that often leads the FDA to tell drug developers a given drug is not safe, according to UC Davis chemist David Olson, who also spoke with Filter about his ibogaine research.

“I think that ibogaine is a really exciting molecule that teaches us a lot, and you can develop molecules that are more selective,” Shoichet said.

In fact, that’s exactly what he and his team have done by discovering two SERT inhibitors, which block the brain’s serotonin transporter similarly to ibogaine and SSRI drugs like Prozac. These molecules, they report, are potent, less promiscuous than ibogaine, and not problematic for the heart.

In 2020, meanwhile, Olson and his colleagues engineered tabernanthalog, or TBG, a synthetic molecule that’s again like ibogaine, but without the hallucinogenic aspect.

“Essentially what we did is we took the structure [of ibogaine] and we sliced off different parts of it,” Olson said. To use a car analogy, “we chopped off the door, we removed the windshield, and we found that we still had something that produced everything like therapeutic effects, but was a lot easier to manufacture.”

The new drug is licensed to Delix Therapeutics Inc., a company Olson started, and is still at a preclinical stage, having been tested on zebrafish so far and confirmed to not bind to the ion channel of concern in the heart. Promisingly, the researchers also found that it encouraged formation of new dendrites, or branches, on rat neurons—and new spines on the dendrites. This suggests effects like the neuroplastic and brain cell regenerating property of psychedelics such as ketamine, LSD and DMT.

Such neuroplasticity may be an important aspect of ibogaine’s effect on addiction, re-establishing synaptic connections in the prefrontal cortex that appear to be damaged in people with substance use disorder.

Core to these explorations is the notion that one day, drugs with ibogaine-like properties could—in the absence of substantial risks—be take-home medications for far more people than will ever access ibogaine itself.

And It’s illegal

Ibogaine is illegal in the US and several other countries. But its sale is decriminalized in Portugal, and it’s unregulated in Germany and Mexico. It’s controlled in other places and can be prescribed, for example, in Australia and New Zealand. In the Netherlands, where it’s not regulated but also not criminalized, there are many ibogaine treatment centers, the same situation as in Costa Rica.

Hopes of bringing ibogaine to the US rest largely on the growing interest in psychedelics and on initiatives to decriminalize or medically regulate drugs in this class.

States like Colorado and Oregon seem like the most immediate prospects for progress.

There’s certainly no shortage of people ready to launch businesses selling ibogaine or ibogaine treatment the minute it’s legal to do so. Barressi said his clinic works with veterans’ organizations and others in the US, including MAPS, who want to see an expansion of access to the addiction treatment.

States like Colorado and Oregon seem like the most immediate prospects for progress. Ibogaine made it onto Colorado’s Proposition 122, which squeaked into law last year; so licensed “psychedelic healing” facilities, and perhaps addiction treatment centers, should be able to offer ibogaine, among three plant-based psychedelics, in the state as of 2026.

At the federal level, Rick Doblin, founder of MAPS—whose drug development subsidiary has just submitted an application to the FDA for medical approval of MDMA—expects ibogaine to eventually receive a similar nod.

In 2022, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration said it would explore creating an interagency psychedelics task force to investigate possible use and deployment of psychedelic medicine and therapy. It’s possible, but not guaranteed, that ibogaine could be included by such a task force, which has yet to be announced.

Perhaps more surprisingly, in July, the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission discussed possible use of opioid settlement money to fund development of a safer, ibogaine-based OUD treatment, possibly to the tune of $7 million over six years.

What About the Masses?

Like other researchers focused on the active molecules in the iboga plant, Shoichet argues that the goal of addiction medicine is to scale up to treat millions of people in need.

His and Olson’s approaches—and similar molecule-based ventures, like the isolation of ibogaine analog 18-methoxycoronaridine, or 18-MC, which works on nicotinic receptors and appears to offer ibogaine’s anti-craving properties without the downsides—all aim to satisfy that requirement. What they’re looking to produce must be easy to administer, not require heavy clinical oversight, be relatively safe, be cost-effective to produce, and be standardized.

The contrast to the current, Lotsof-inspired ibogaine model of unique, individualized experiences couldn’t be greater.

How are we to assess the relative merits of a small, attentive clinic setting, where part of the therapy is kind attention, psychotherapy, massage and individual tweaking of the program—or a traditional, time-honored ritual, where it’s impossible to separate out the different components—versus the merits of a relatively safer, cheaper, easy-to-administer take-home treatment that can be implemented at scale?

Each comes with the potentially corrupting profit motive. Each has a natural philosophical appeal: A synthetic can be made accessible to most people, and avoids the environmentally and culturally destructive aspects of illicit sales of iboga from Gabon (fair trade is so far not a major component of iboga sales, and it’s usually smuggled out of its country of origin). A small treatment center provides holistic supervision in a pleasant environment with a break from regular life.

But again, these options share a critical caveat in the real-life context of mass opioid-involved overdoses and deaths: the risk of a person returning to use with increased vulnerability.

“It won’t move the needle on the so-called opioid crisis or the overdose crisis. It won’t move the needle.”

Unlike with the gold-standard OUD medications, methadone and buprenorphine, this risk is not mitigated by the person having maintained a level of opioid tolerance. Where abstinence is held out as the overriding goal, OUD patients will be required to put great faith, with limited evidential backing, in the long-term ability of ibogaine or similar drugs to protect them from the statistically extremely high risk of returning to use in a deadly unregulated market.

When I asked some of the people quoted in this article about the risk of letting a person detox without providing a safety cushion in case of resumed use, various responses acknowledged but downplayed it. They pointed to ibogaine patients’ lack of desire to use again, thanks to newly gained insight into the causes of their substance use; or denied it’s like other forms of opioid detox and abstinence treatment, which raise the risk, compared to methadone and buprenorphine, of overdose death and emergency room admission.

“It won’t move the needle on the so-called opioid crisis or the overdose crisis. It won’t move the needle,” Mugianis said of ibogaine.

Kentucky’s overdose crisis, he argues in a recent op-ed, demands urgent action on proven large-scale responses targeted directly at the most marginalized people, instead of “diverting [opioid settlement] funds to an exotic research project.” As well as funding opioid agonist treatment, this could include housing, job training, childcare or covering transportation costs so that people can access evidence-based OUD treatment.

“There’s an idea,” Mugianis told Filter, “that psychedelics will somehow magically transform society and will somehow lead to the … destruction of structural issues around class and race and gender … It’s just absolute fetishism, and harmful fetishism. We need to do the hard work of change.”

It doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game.

The promise of ibogaine is indeed enticing. It has been genuinely transformative for people like Franciotti. And it is emphatically worthy of further investigation—particularly in the form of a cheap, accessible pill, and particularly for addictions that don’t already have a medication-based treatment.

But with improvements to dosing, convenience, side-effect management and dignified, equitable access, our existing OUD medications might turn from “liquid handcuffs” to something just as amenable to either spa resort treatment or a simple-to-take pill.

It doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. After all, a diversity of treatment options is good, and abstinence from opioids is a valid goal for people who choose it. But an opioid strategy that diverted either public awareness or resources away from methadone and buprenorphine in favor of ibogaine would be a costly mistake.  

Photograph of Tabernanthe iboga by Scamperdale via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0

R Street Institute supported the production of this article through a restricted grant to The Influence Foundation, which operates Filter. Filter‘s Editorial Independence Policy applies.

The post Neither Snake Oil Nor Silver Bullet: Ibogaine for Opioid Use Disorder appeared first on Filter.

In November 2022, Colorado voters dramatically changed the state’s approach to psychedelics by approving Proposition 122. That measure decriminalized possession, growing and sharing of naturally occurring psychedelics. It also called for the creation of a regulated, licensed psychedelic therapy system in the state. Initially, this would just cover psilocybin services. But Prop 122 gave Colorado the option to ultimately go further, by authorizing ibogaine, DMT and mescaline services after June 2026.

Now, however, state lawmakers have advanced legislation with amendments that change some of the provisions of Prop 122. Senate Bill 23-290 would apply certain restrictions to the psychedelic therapy model. It would also allow the state to regulate and allow ibogaine services at any time—without having to wait a few years, as with the other psychedelics on the list. Such a move would first have to be approved by the Natural Medicine Advisory Board, which Prop 122 created, and the state licensing authority. This bill has now passed both chambers of the legislature and headed Governor Jared Polis (D).

Neither Colorado Senate President Steve Fenberg (D) nor Representative Judith Amabile (D), who sponsored the legislation, responded to Filter‘s requests for comment by publication time.

“We’re going to start an ibogaine clinic in Colorado.”

Ibogaine is a powerful hallucinogen derived from certain plants, most notably Tabernanthe iboga, a shrub native to the central African countries of Gabon, Republic of the Congo and Democratic Republic of the Congo. Iboga consumption plays a role in the Bwiti spiritual practice of Indigenous African peoples.

In recent decades, ibogaine has drawn increasing international attention for its therapeutic potential for conditions including depression and opioid use disorder. Reportedly, ibogaine temporarily disrupts opioid cravings and withdrawal symptoms, allowing the person to rapidly detox. According to an observational study published in the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, “A single ibogaine treatment reduced opioid withdrawal symptoms and achieved opioid cessation or sustained reduced use in dependent individuals as measured over 12 months.” One clinical trial in Spain has been testing an ibogaine treatment protocol for patients who want to taper off methadone.

As anticipation grew about ibogaine treatment becoming a reality in Colorado, Dana Beal, a veteran advocate for cannabis legalization and ibogaine treatment, posted a photograph on Facebook on April 24. “Kevin Matthews is on my right,” said the caption, referring to the Colorado advocate who directed the 2019 Decriminalize Denver campaign and was chief sponsor of Prop 122. “We’re going to start an ibogaine clinic in Colorado.”

Beal told Filter that his relationship with Matthews dates back over a year, to when Prop 122 was being drafted. “I got him to put ibogaine in the bill,” he said. “It was a chorus of people saying let’s do psilocybin first because it’s not threatening to people, [and] they wanted a gradual approach.” Matthews was not able to provide comment to Filter by publication time.

Details about the potential clinic are currently light—unsurpisingly so, when various regulatory issues remain to be resolved, even if Gov. Polis signs the bill. For one thing, the legislation prohibits any synthetic version or analog of a naturally occurring psychedelic. So where would a clinic source its ibogaine, which is a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law? And would the restriction to natural sources put additional strain on overburdened wild plant populations?

Beal, who said that he is working with an FDA-licensed lab in India to develop ibogaine suitable for clinical use, believes such challenges can be overcome.

Ibogaine is not without some significant risks. The drug prolongs the heart’s “QT” interval, disruption which may lead to tachycardia. In rarer cases, the drug may also cause adverse effects including ataxia or seizures. It also has some serious contraindications with other medications, including pharmaceutical antidepressants like SSRIs or MAOIs, and benzodiazepines.

“You need a nurse that’s really experienced giving ibogaine, who’s seen just about everything,” Beal said. “Having a heart doctor would be nice, but they’re expensive and you don’t need them 99 percent of the time.”

“It seems odd to premise this bill on the supposed safety concerns of psilocybin and then also fast-track ibogaine, which clearly has the greatest safety concerns.”

The extra safety considerations with ibogaine compared with some other psychedelics are in part why Mason Marks, a law professor at Florida State University specializing in psychedelic law and publisher of Psychedelic Week, questions the bill’s plan to speed up ibogaine rollout.

Legislators are “blowing up the safety concerns about psilocybin,” he told Filter, “in some cases exaggerating them (not that there aren’t risks)—it seems odd to premise this bill on the supposed safety concerns of psilocybin and then also fast-track ibogaine, which clearly has the greatest safety concerns.”

Marks also noted the involvement of Matthews, as Prop 122’s chief sponsor, in the proposed ibogaine clinic. “I think there already has been some exclusivity granted in terms of access to the lawmakers,” he said, calling the idea of a business being developed after exclusive access, if that were the case, “concerning.”

“There were other groups that reached out to [Senator Fenberg’s] office and were not allowed to meet with him,” Marks said, adding that despite Fenberg inviting advocates to meet with him about the Senate bill, no meetings seem to have been granted—including to Marks, who himself requested one.

Noah Potter, a longtime ibogaine advocate and consultant, and author of the New Amsterdam Psychedelic Law blog, said that Matthews’ involvement wouldn’t be “in and of itself” a conflict. “I think it depends on the degree to which there’s open competition available,” he told Filter. “If you have some kind of exclusive deal, that’s something that should be subject to consideration. [Just] create open access.”

“You have a body of knowledge as to how to administer. There shouldn’t be a delay.”

Noah Potter also believes that Colorado can and should authorize and regulate ibogaine services as quickly as possible.

“People have been giving underground treatments since the late 1980’s in Europe and the US,” he said. “You have a body of knowledge as to how to administer. There shouldn’t be a delay. The task at hand should be to understand the practices already in use and regulate no more than [to ensure] those systems work safely—and immediately.”

Asked how Colorado might approach this, he said, “Allow the local governments to regulate ibogaine treatments themselves. You have the local health department. Give them the authority to facilitate access to ibogaine. In terms of the unlicensed market, allow safe consumption sites with medical personnel on hand.”

If it does so, Colorado will face the question of how to balance safety concerns with the potential to create inequalities in ibogaine access. In Oregon, voter-approved psilocybin therapy services are expected to launch later this year. But the complex system of regulations, licensing and trainings mandated by the state means that these services are projected to cost clients several thousand dollars. As the state has acknowledged, this will restrict access based on income. Similarly, licensing costs and other expenses like real estate and equipment mean that becoming a psilocybin business owner is far more difficult for small and independent entrepreneurs.

The author participated with Dana Beal in organizing cannabis legalization protests during the 2016 elections, and also helped Noah Potter co-organize the 2017 New York City Cannabis Parade.

Photograph of Tabernanthe iboga by Ji-Elle via WikiMedia/Creative Commons 4.0

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In November 2022, Colorado voters approved Proposition 122. The measure has several pieces to it, including decriminalizing possession, growing and sharing of most naturally occurring psychedelic drugs. It also legalizes psilocybin therapy services, where people will pay to use the drug at special centers and under trained supervision—and mandates the creation of the advisory board that Gov. Polis has just appointed.

It’s a somewhat similar model to one that’s already being implemented in Oregon, which made history in 2020 when its voters approved psilocybin therapy services. Oregon is now just months away from opening its first service centers. Colorado won’t do so for another two years, as its own rules are developed. 

Where Prop. 122 goes beyond Oregon is that while Colorado’s centers will initially offer only psilocybin, they may, at a later point, be permitted to expand their services to include substances like DMT (ayahuasca), mescaline (excluding peyote) and/or ibogaine. Prop. 122 is also more flexible about how psychedelic centers will be conceived, which makes the advisory board’s job critical.

The  board is responsible for examining existing research and information about psilocybin and then drafting rules. By September 30, it must make its recommendations to the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA), which has the final authority over any rules. DORA will annnounce its final rules by September 30, 2024.

The board members picked by Gov. Polis bring different and diverse experiences to the table, including health care, harm reduction, criminal justice, veterans’ rights, journalism, research and addiction counseling. The body includes doctors and researchers, lawyers, elected officials, a poet, a paramedic and a sheriff.

Mason Marks, a law professor at Florida State University who specializes in psychedelics, published a detailed breakdown of each board member’s experience in Psychedelic Week, based on available sources online. 

“The Colorado law gives [the state] far more discretion [than Oregon]. It’s almost wide open. There’s a lot more decisions to be made.”

It’s not immediately clear how many of the appointments have direct experience working with psychedelic drugs or people who use them. But among the members, Sue Sisley, MD, president of the Scottsdale Research Institute in Arizona, is actively developing a clinical trial for psilocybin mushrooms. The institute’s work also focuses on cannabis, LSD and MDMA. In addition, Dr. Sofia Chavez, PhD of Estara Health & Wellness is a member of the International Collaboration of Indigenous Healers, Curanderos, Sanadores y Shamans, and is a certified doctor of natural medicine. A notable omission is that no one from the Denver commission which studied impacts of the city’s 2019 psilocybin decriminalization has been appointed to the state advisory board. 

The board members and their experiences will heavily influence how psychedelics are regulated in Colorado. Compared to Oregon, Prop 122 allows for more possibilities—whether that means the non-medical framework Oregon chose, which does not require clients to have any diagnosis; or something more strictly regulated that’s closer to clinical medicine; or something else we can’t imagine yet. (In Oregon, for example, a religious exemption was proposed to allow psilocybin use in group ceremonies, as a way for people to avoid the high anticipated costs of the service-center model; that proposal was rejected by the state’s advisory board.)

“The Colorado law gives [the state] far more discretion [than Oregon] to adjust this industry by making the rules,” Marks told Filter. “It’s almost wide open. There’s a lot more decisions to be made.”

“One of the big questions is, is this psilocybin framework going to be a really intensely medicalized framework?”

These include important issues like where people can access psychedelic services, and what will be required of those locations. And unlike Oregon (at least, so far), Colorado will require that service providers collect clients’ data, which is something the state will have to set privacy rules around.

“One of the big questions is, is this psilocybin framework going to be a really intensely medicalized framework?” Marks said. “It has the potential to do that. In Oregon, you can’t have a service center in a health care facility … Here in Colorado, you can.”

So depending on the board members’ knowledge of, and attitude toward, psychedelics, Colorado’s model could end up being even more restrictive—and costly for clients—than Oregon’s. But the reverse is also true.

Another important future date is July 1, 2026. That’s when the state must decide if it will expand psychedelic services to include ibogaine, mescaline or DMT. It can only do so if the board approves this first.

We don’t yet know what the board will consider in making that decision. Will it rely only on scarce scientific research, or will anecdotal evidence also be admissible? If there’s some risk associated with these drugs—and there always is some risk—will the board consider that only prescribed access should be recommended? Or will it—as with alcohol or legal cannabis—trust adults to make the best decisions for themselves?

For psilocybin, “they can point to clinical trials and say look, hundreds of people have been given psilocybin in clinical trials and adverse effects have been mild and time-limited,” Marks said. “We don’t have that information for mescaline and ayahuasca, even though it may well be true they’re not particularly concerning.”

Photograph by gailhampshire via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 2.0

The post Colorado’s Legal-Psilocybin Plan “Wide Open” as Gov. Appoints Board appeared first on Filter.

Supervisors Dean Preston (District 5) and cosponsor Supervisor Hillary Ronen (District 9) introduced the resolution on July 26. The resolution, which you can view below, resolves that “City resources not be used for any investigation, detention, arrest, or prosecution” related to use of “Entheogenic Plants listed on the Federally Controlled Substances Schedule 1 list.” That list includes psilocybin, DMT, mescaline and ibogaine. The resolution also calls on the state of California and the federal government to decriminalize entheogens.

“We believe decriminalization offers transparency for safe, qualified and ethical practitioners for the community,” Dr. Jennifer Christian, a clinical psychologist with Decriminalize Nature San Francisco, a group advocating for the resolution, told Filter. “And supporting public safety and risk reduction by promoting safe access, safe spaces and above ground education and training.” 

“We know the set and setting matters, so this threat of persecution and illegality is really overbearing.”

With the resolution introduced, there’s unlikely to be any more immediate action, as lawmakers are about to go on recess until September 1. In the meantime, advocates plan to continue lobbying elected officials and building support among other local activists. “We’ve spoken and reached out to all of the city supervisors; we’ve met with about half or so,” Marjorie Sturm, another Decriminalize Nature San Francisco advocate, told Filter.   

Amid the overdose crisis, “we’re not in a position to turn away old and new healing modalities that are effective,” Sturm added. “We know the set and setting matters, so this threat of persecution and illegality is really overbearing.”

Sturm was previously a case worker in the city’s Tenderloin district. As Filter has reported, the Tenderloin is suffering a police crackdown on drug use and unhoused residents. Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency in the area, and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who recently replaced the ousted Chesa Boudin, is following suit by ramping up the city’s drug war.

Sturm accepts that decriminalizing psychedelics alone won’t solve these issues. “This isn’t a magic bullet,” she said, “this isn’t treatment that will be effective for everyone, this isn’t going to house people.” And while she believes psychedelics can help many people with substance use disorder—some studies have suggested as much—she acknowledged that people who are housed or working will be most likely to benefit. 

San Francisco has long been linked to psychedelic culture and policy. It features prominently in the books of the Beat poets—most famously Jack Kerouac—who helped popularize the use of psychedelic drugs. In the 1960s, the city and its Haight-Ashbury community served as a cradle of the counterculture movement, producing some of the most famous psychedelic-inspired artists of that era, like the Grateful Dead, Santana, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane.

Then in the 1990s, local activists like Dennis Peron helped galvanize a movement to secure marijuana as a legal medicine for HIV/AIDS patients. Their work culminated in the successful 1996 referendum to legalize medical marijuana in California—the harbinger of today’s national cannabis movement.

If San Francisco does decriminalize, it will notch a highly symbolic victory for this growing movement.

Today, despite the renewed drug war against its most vulnerable residents, San Francisco is home to prominent psychedelic research and academic centers, including the Neuroscape Psychedelics Division, the Translational Psychedelic Research Program, and the California Institute of Integrative Studies. So if San Francisco does decriminalizes psychedelics, it will notch a highly symbolic victory for this growing movement. (And the speaker of the House will represent a decriminalized city.)

While decriminalization supporters in San Francisco and beyond highlight the healing potential of these substances, they’re clear that decriminalization will not regulate sales.

Decriminalize Nature San Francisco is deliberately forgoing an approach like that seen in Oregon—which did legalize psilocybin therapy centers, and is creating a complex system of licenses, testing, training, and certifications to treat patients—and earning some criticisms along the way. Instead, San Francisco would likely follow the lead of Oakland—which, three years after passing decriminalization, is now working to guarantee safety for communal and ceremonial use of entheogens through a “grow, gift, gather” model.

California advocates are also looking to the state legislature, where an even bigger reform is under consideration. After months of inaction, the California Assembly Appropriations committee is finally hearing Senate Bill 519. Sponsored by Senator Scott Wiener, this would decriminalize possession of small amounts of entheogenic drugs statewide. It goes further by allowing “facilitated or supported use,” including group use, for people over 21. Healers would be able to charge a fee for their supportive services, but not for the drug itself.

San Francisco’s resolution:

Correction, July 27: The date of the introduction of the resolution has been corrected in this article.

Photograph by Conall via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0

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