Howard Lotsof's College Ibogaine Lecture - Part 1/3

Howard Lotsof gave a lecture in an auditorium at the CUNY College of Staten Island on Ibogaine.

The event was hosted by English professor Michael Christian who assembled a group of over 100 eager college students from his classes along with some from a psychology class at CSI. The students listened attentively, hanging in silence to every word Howard uttered. It was the first time I'd seen so many college 20-somethings hear Howard talk -- far from the stuffy, uptight, high-brow academic bourgeoisie at the scientific conferences I'd attended in the past where Howard was invited to present. Instead of sneering skepticism bordering on derision, these young people were transfixed by Howard's first hand account; indeed, anyone would be who actually listen.

Howard was animated and excited. I'd heard every recollection many times before; the difference here was Howard's obvious enthusiasm and zeal. Like a man spinning a yarn to sailors trapped in the bowels of a container freighter pitching and yawing in a raging storm in the Atlantic, Howard took command of his crew and captivated these young impressionable minds. They greeted him warmly and applauded in a hearty lion roar at the end.

At the conclusion Howard stood up, clapping with the audience, smiling ear to ear, like the 6 foot thin as a toothpick leprechaun he is. He grasped victory in his palm and almost made a "V" with one hand and a thumbs up with the other. He sensed his words would spread virally from these minds. He had done his job admirably and once again planted the seeds that would sprout new roots for generations to come.

Michael originally contacted me to give a talk to his students in the classroom because he came across this blog and believed I was some kind of authority on the subject of ibogaine. I immediately emailed him back and urged him to contact Howard directly. I explained, "Why invite a sailor who sailed the Santa Maria as a bottle washer when you could get Christopher Columbus himself?" Michael did not disagree. A few weeks later, the stage was set for Howard's dashing entrance. The Staten Island press corp was present, along with a video crew. This was going to be seen beyond these hallowed halls. My videotaping this event would ensure thousands more would be invited to the celebration.

It is heartwarming for me to see my good friend basking in the warmth and adulation of these young minds. I will always remember this day and will tell my grandchildren about it someday, and they theirs.

Hell, they can even watch the video below and witness it themselves. The heck with me! Who do I think I am, anyways (a mole on the butt of a beluga circling Antarctica is who!)?

Click here for Michael's Christian's original press release.

Click here for the post-lecture press release and an early video interview with Howard.

EDEN'S GIFT: How a sacred African shrub became mankind's hope to end addiction

In 1962 nineteen year old heroin addict Howard Lotsof ended a 33 hour episode with an exotic psychotropic drug called ibogaine hydrochloride, ordered from a pharmaceutical catalog. The experience was so physically and emotionally exhausting that he swore never to use ibogaine again. After 30 intense hours he was so tired he thought he'd sleep for a week, but 3 hours later awoke completely refreshed. That was the first clue something was amiss.

Howard got dressed and, famished, went downstairs. He flew out the front door and down the red brick steps of his family's working class Bergenfield, New Jersey home. As his feet hit the sidewalk he stopped dead in his tracks. He gazed at an old maple tree on the lawn, leaves rustling in the wind, then looked up at the bright blue sky and puffy cotton ball clouds -- and it suddenly struck him: he wasn't junk sick. His craving for dope had disappeared.

Howard would file this discovery away in the catacombs of his consciousness for the next decade.

I met Howard and his wife Norma Alexander in 1973 as a freshman at New York University's film school. Howard and Norma were the oldest students in our class and at 16, I was the youngest. But my youthful inhibition, some would call it assininity, and their keen intelligence and worldliness were somehow attractors, and we became instant and inseparable friends. A tall bushy-haired anglo of Russian descent, a female African American cheroot-puffing fireplug, and a short, bespeckled Asian American teen cruising the halls of NYU. Very strange indeed.

On a spring afternoon in 1974, Howard calmly related his discovery to me. I was blown away. Never did I doubt the claims of my sincere, soft spoken, gentle mad Russian of a friend. We both knew this was important but neither of us knew how to bring the news to the world. Nonetheless, in 1985 I was the first person to give Howard money to conduct library research on ibogaine. I had a deep heartfelt conviction that this project deserved every possible chance to see the light of day and to help others. I did not consider any return or riches.

Spurred on by the supportive results of his inquiry, Howard formed a corporation, NDA International, as a vehicle to raise more funds. Due to my years as an executive of my family's museum design and production business, I joined NDA's Board of Directors and was made a senior vice president.

Thus began a 15 year roller coaster ride we could not ever have imagined or been prepared for.

This blog is an intimate inside account of the international drama that exploded around ibogaine and Howard Lotsof's controversial and polarizing claims. This true story is at once uplifting, hair-raising, filled with life affirming hope tempered with despair and death, intrigue, dispute, betrayal, redemption, and love - all told by someone who lived through it.

ENDABUSE Report - Part 6/6

The 6th and final segment of this video series touches upon human clinical trials and closing remarks of the patients and caregivers of those treated with ibogaine in the ENDABUSE Procedure. A doctor emphasizes his view that this is a safe and rapid interruption of withdrawal and chemical dependency that opens a symptom free window of opportunity during which patients need psychological and social support for a long term outcome.



In their closing arguments, a medical doctor posits that the ENDABUSE Procedure is medically safe; it provides a symptom-free window that requires psychological and social support to reinforce a positive outcome for patients.

A patient assures other addicts not to be afraid. The repressed memories that ibogaine releases are often positive ones that are overlooked and forgotten. She says that, within 24 hours, you are out of the slavery of addiction, of constantly hustling for that next high.

Howard Lotsof informs viewers that NDA has made arrangements with medical facilities overseas to provide safe environments for addicts to be treated with the ENDABUSE Procedure.

Later, when that infrastructure was no longer in place, we had no idea that the addicts would take on the treatment of other addicts themselves, risking their lives in people's homes rather than the safety of medical facilities. This was a movement that no one could stop, born out of desperation and the rejection of socially acceptable channels that never materialized.

The ibogaine underground was formed like the American underground railroad in the 1800s that sheparded slaves to freedom, by compassionate individuals who valued human rights above the unjust laws of a society that has marginalized a whole underclass of human beings who deserve, just like you and I, to live free and without being enslaved to the madness of addiction.

Part of the strategy of NDA International in releasing this video was to spur the approval of human clinical trials by the FDA. Phase 1 were the animal studies that showed anti-addiction efficacy in the animal model. Later researcher Mark Molliver would shoot down a mountain of work by demonstrating ibogaine neurotoxicity in primates who were given staggering amounts of the compound. Of course, we countered with the argument that, if you gave enough of any compound (like glucose, for example) to a monkey, they would die of an overdose.

Dana Beal and the YIPPIES went to Washington, along with representatives of Act-Up, social workers and addicts who testified -- no, demanded, that ibogaine clinical trials go forward because people were dying and there was no other hope on the horizon.

Howard and I witnessed this 3 ring circus first hand with ringside seats in hotel conference rooms along the Beltway in Maryland. It was chaotically orchestrated behind the scenes by Dana, Robert Rand, and a handful of other activists who knew how to manipulate the media and the federales. The Village Voice (of course!) and New York Times ran articles, soon followed by the Boston Globe, and the major networks, CNN, and dozens of local news stations ran reports. Across the world headlines poured in from the U.K., the Netherlands, France, Canada. Dozens of international scientists began their own experiments with ibogaine.

Facing unexpected, unwanted, and unsolicited public outcry and mounting media pressure, the FDA eventually approved a human clinical safety trial at the Unversity of Miami. Howard Lotsof had finally triumphed in his Davy and Goliath effort to force the American government to spend public funds to investigate ibogaine.

Victory was indeed sweet. But it was to be short lived and, eventually, a bitter brew.

No one could predict the confluence of circumstances, betrayal, and greed that would topple NDA International and bring its efforts in commercializing ibogaine treatment to a grinding, screeching halt.

The ENDABUSE Report - Part 5

Part 5 of this video series focuses on the post-treatment experiences of patients who underwent the ENDABUSE Procedure with ibogaine. They discuss a window of opportunity from weeks to months where they had no addictive cravings during which they could make needed changes in their lives. Social workers who did pioneering psychotherapy with these patients also reveal their
findings.



In this segment NYC social worker Barbara Judd notes that, using classical psychotherapy, patients would take 2-3 years to achieve the insights and personal epiphanies that a single dose of ibogaine accomplished in 30-48 hours. These patients were not only able to re-experience critical formulative scenes from their past, but they could do so objectively at a distance, without the accompanying emotional trauma, a remarkable achievement unto itself.

Ibogaine patients were uniformly astonished by their lack of craving post treatment. One woman recounts being in the same room with other addicts who were using, shooting up, and snorting and realizing the comic-tragedy of how they fought over a little bit of powder, how something so insignificant could be so important. She gave her heroin away that day and, within 6 months, went back to school to get her life back on track.

Another young man recalls how, after his ibogaine treatment, he lit up a cigarette and was repulsed by the taste, choking on the smoke. Quitting smoking was the last thing on his mind when he undertook the procedure.

All of these patients eventually went back to using drugs. For some it was within weeks, for others, months. As they re-entered their lives and the effect of ibogaine gradually wore off, the daily pressures and their own insecurities re-asserted themselves and they eventually succumbed.

Social worker Rommell Washington explains that relapse is a familiar part of the addiction cycle. Most of these patients were later re-treated with ibogaine. Another woman explains that, with each treatment, her ability to cope and fend off her personal demons grew stronger. It was only a matter of time until she would be psychologically strong enough to live permanently without drugs.

This was another important lesson for Howard Lotsof and NDA International. A regimen of reinforcing psychotherapy, support groups, and retreatment emerged as the correct long term treatment model. What Howard originally believed was a single treatment modality was proving to be a single important tool in the established system of addiction treatment. This new model meant more economic opportunity for NDA: a series of ibogaine treatments over a period of years with accompanying support systems.

The cup was half full, not half empty. There was more work yet to do.

Ibogaine: ENDABUSE Report Video - Part 4

In Part 4 of this video series the addicts continue discussing their vivid and transforming experiences after taking Ibogaine. Their testimony is tangibly honest and real, and the revelations they share are nothing short of astonishing. A medical doctor shares his startling first-hand observations of patients who underwent the controversial ENDABUSE Procedure. Finally, social worker Rommel Washington of Reality House in New York recounts the remarkable changes and progress he saw in his clients after undergoing treatment.




After proving his discovery on ibogaine's addiction interruption properties again and again through addict volunteers who were treated free of charge overseas, Howard Lotsof allied with social workers who worked with these patients. They were able to verify distinctive behavioral shifts in the attitudes of their struggling addict patients, positive changes that made everyone optimistic.

A medical doctor also agreed to observe patients during their ibogaine treatments and provided, for the first time, objective clinical medical data on this test group that would speak to the medical establishment.

With positive animal studies, scientific and medical corroboration, the advocacy of social workers within the drug treatment establishment, and a growing legion of addicts, addict groups, the NY YIPPIES, Harm reduction coalitions, and HIV radicals who clamored quite noisily for treatment, all the ingredients were in place to assault the U.S. government and push for human clinical trials. This is exactly the direction Howard took NDA International in the coming years. Fighting the system. Davy versus Goliath.

The ENDABUSE Report Video is brought to the world free of charge by MEDIA WORKS CORP.

Sit back, enjoy, and please send me your comments. The fight is not yet over.

Ibogaine: ENDABUSE Report Video - Part 3

Part 3 of the ENDABUSE Report deals with addict descriptions of the horrors of heroin cold turkey withdrawal and methadone detox. A medical doctor who evaluated and observed four patients treated with the ENDABUSE Procedure using Ibogaine and addicts explain the medical testing required prior to treatment to screen out those physically unfit.

Howard Lotsof then outlines the phases of experiences people treated with Ibogaine can expect:

1. Visualization Phase: lasting between 3 to 5 hours, this is a period of intense and rapid-fire playback of both symbolic and past experiences that appear on what's often been described as a "movie screen" in the viewer's mind. It sounds similar to Near Death Experiences where people describe their entire life flashing by them in seconds. These past experiences are typically not judged subjectively as either positive or negative but with a remarkable degree of objective and unemotional observation.

2. Cognitive Evaluation Phase: During this phase of self evaluation that lasts 6 to 8 hours, often the key events, relationships, emotions, and motivations that have resulted in someone's addiction are realized quite clearly by the patient, minus their emotional baggage. As a result, conscious decisions are made by the patient that reinforce their behavioral modification in breaking addictive patterns in their lives. As social worker Barbara Judd observed (she appears later in this series and formed a support group with several patients who were treated using the ENDABUSE Procedure), one treatment with Ibogaine seems to accomplish breakthroughs and self-awareness that typically takes years to accomplish using conventional psychotherapy.

3. Residual Stimulation Phase: This phase lasts up to 48 hours and is the most uncomfortable and difficult period patients endure. It follows the intense visual experiences and the decision-making phases. During this phase a patient cannot stand up on their own due to ataxia, they feel exhausted and overwhelmed but cannot rest or fall asleep. Often, patients now realize their cravings have disappeared, they're not "dope sick" -- perhaps for the first time in years. It's usually a very positive and welcome feeling, reinforcing the reason they sought treatment to begin with.

At the end of this phase, patients typically fall alseep for only a few hours and awaken completely refreshed, often hungry after their 30+ hour ordeal. Many who were smokers don't want a cigarette when they finally eat and have a cup of coffee. Most are amazed by their newfound sobriety. Food tastes delicious and the air entering their lungs feels good, they feel whole.

For observers of these patients, they can see a remarkable change in them, like night and day. No wonder so many former addicts want to help others through their Ibogaine treatment. It's an affirmation of life, of light versus dark, of hope versus self-defeat, of one's own glorious potential as a human being on this planet within this universe.

In the final section of Part 3 the addicts present their own experiences during their Ibogaine treatment, affirming Howard's claims and themselves.

Part 4 (coming soon) will have more testimonials. Thank you for staying tuned!

Ibogaine: ENDABUSE Report Video - Part 2

Part 2 of this six part series features the testimonials of 6 addicts (2 women and 4 men) with cocaine, heroin, and methadone dependencies who underwent treatment with the ENDABUSE Procedure using Ibogaine Hydrochloride.




This segment deals with their candid, graphic, and often disturbing accounts of how and why they became addicted to chemical substances. They are brutally honest about themselves, baring their inner souls and lives to the camera.

These six individuals (pioneers, actually) represented the first wave of those who went overseas to countries like Holland and Panama to be treated where Ibogaine was not restricted. In the early 1980's Howard Lotsof needed to demonstrate that the ENDABUSE Procedure to interrupt chemical dependencies and withdrawal symptoms was both valid and reproducible, not the rantings of a self-obsessed madman.

One of NDA International's early investors who was outside Howard's immediate circle of friends was a California psychotherapist, Dr. Leo Zeff, then in his late 70's, who treated dozens of patients in the 1960's using Ibogaine. Dr. Zeff, like Dr. Claudio Naranjo, were the first from the medical ranks to treat patients using Ibogaine as an adjunct to psychotherapy. When Leo went through his patient records, he discovered that a number of those who were addicts had their cravings interrupted after their Ibogaine sessions with him. The lightbulb went off in his head, and he made a sizable investment in NDA. No doubt, we were all delighted to have his professional affirmation and support.

One of the first things Howard did after Leo's involvement was to fly Dr. Zeff, his wife Norma, and himself to Gabon, Africa with a French interpreter and well known medical journal article translator, Bill Gladstone, to meet President Omar Bongo and his scientific advisor, Professor Jean-Noel Gassita. In the most diplomatic of moves, Howard told President Bongo that eboka (the Gabonese name for Iboga Tabernanthe, the name of the plant from which Ibogaine is derived) was Africa's gift to the world. Bongo immediately arranged to have several kilos of the raw botanical made available to Howard for alkaloid extraction. Howard now had access to supplies. The next part of the puzzle was treatment.

Howard traveled to Amsterdam where he found social activists in the Harm Reduction movement who advocated needle exchange to stop HIV and a society that tolerated soft drugs and prostitution. He hooked up with a prominent Dutch psychiatrist, Dr. Jan Bastiaans, who was famous for conducting psychotherapy sessions using LSD in the 1960's. Dr. Bastiaans was the first medical observer of the ENDABUSE Procedure, and his involvement created sanction from the law enforcement and medical establishment.

One by one, the addicts came from the United States to the Netherlands to be treated with Ibogaine, on nothing more than a tall tale and the conviction of Howard. They were moving into uncharted waters using their flesh and blood as guinea pigs. Dosing had to be determined. Timing and precautions had to be worked out. These people knew what was at stake, but their desire to break the horrible cycle of addiction was stronger than their fears.

And so they took the plunge.

The ENDABUSE Report Video on Ibogaine - Part 1 of 6

In 1994 Howard and Norma Lotsof and I decided to produce a corporate video on the status of NDA International's patents involving the ENDABUSE Procedure using Ibogaine Hydrochloride in the treatment of addictive chemical dependency disorders. The result was a 56 minute video that featured Howard as NDA president, scientists that presented ethnobotanical research (BeLinda Hayes, PhD) and animal studies (Patrica Broderick, Phd; Stanley Glick, MD and M.R. Dzoljic, PhD, MD) to the Food and Drug Administration, 6 addicts who were treated with ibogaine, social workers Rommell Washington and Barbara Judd, and a doctor who observed patients using the ENDABUSE Procedure (tm).




Part 1 of this 6 video series features the scientists who performed animal studies. Future videos will focus on testimonials from addicts and those who work with them.

Howard, Norma and I met as film students at New York University in 1973. It was a natural for us to document the early history of this project. I shot all the footage with Howard's assistance on lighting and Howard, Norma and I spent days in the editing room with a NewTek Video Toaster system painstakingly constructing each edit on a linear editing system using 2 VCRs. Although primitive compared to non-linear computer video editing systems today, we made do with what we had and put together the very first comprehensive video documenting the science of ibogaine combined with addict, social worker, and medical testimonials on its efficacy.

Since 1994, The ENDABUSE Report video has been shown at conferences all over the world to scientists, lay-people, organizers, and addicts. Dana Beal has ripped off parts without my permission for use in his own ibogaine videos (Dana is a friend, so I'm okay with this. He just never asked me for my okay).

This video has to be viewed in the context of history. In 1994 Howard Lotsof was still considered by the medical and 99.9% of the scientific community to be an ex-addict crackpot with unsubstantiated and ridiculous, laughable claims for a Schedule 1 illegal hallucinogen derived from the root of an African shrub that indigenous peoples have been using for centuries.

Nobody outside of a handful (counted on one hand) of scientific researchers and a very few of the addict community believed anything Howard had to say. To the medical, pharma-industrial complex, and our government, why should they believe a word of what this lay person and a bunch of outcast drug addicts were saying? Who the hell cares about society's lepers and this whining, pain-in-the-ass, ex-addict who just wouldn't shut up about ibo-who? Who did he think he was, anyway?

Fourteen years later over 300 scientific papers have been published on ibogaine. Ken Alper, MD, of NYU Medical Center estimates over 4,000 addicts have been successfully treated in mostly non-clinical settings using ibogaine to eliminate narcotic withdrawal and reduce drugs cravings from weeks to months to years. The U.S. government and your friendly neighborhood pharmaceutical conglomerates with tens of billions in profits each year continue to ignore ibogaine and millions of addicts around the world and choose to focus on drugs to maintain male erections (sorry for the dig, I know they manufacture a lot of very important drugs to treat diseases and help people like you and me).

Enough of my ranting! Thank goodness for blogs so people like me can rant and chill out in my spare time when I should be watching the tube.

BTW - I apologize for the quality of this video. The original was shot and edited on S-VHS; only a VHS dub could be found at this time to be digitized. I'm still in the process of locating the S-VHS edit master and hope to re-post a higher quality excerpt in the future.

In the meantime, please sit back, pull on some good squeeze, and enjoy.

The Politics and Polemics of Ibogaine

Ibogaine as a psychotropic would always be controversial. Howard Lotsof and I knew this from the get go. What we never expected was that greed and betrayal would ultimately sabotage an enormously worthwhile project, one that could potentially benefit millions of people.

Somewhere along the line, during a 20+ year odyssey that spanned the best years of my life, politics and polemics would get in the way of commercializing ibogaine treatment. What could not be stopped by the pharma-industrial complex or our shortsighted federal government, was the tide of the addicts themselves, weary and war-torn, always on the frontline of human suffering, who were desperate and clever enough to bypass all the oppressive societal mechanisms and treat themselves. This has become the almost righteous legacy of ibogaine.

Fifteen years ago when reports of ibogaine animal studies were being published from Eastern Europe, I turned to Howard and proclaimed, "This thing you started has taken on a life of its own. And no one can stop it. We are about to become bystanders."

Another friend warned me that Howard should never have attempted to make money off of ibogaine. She said he should give his discovery away as a "gift to mankind." Deep down, I felt the truth of her words gnaw at my soul, but the wheels had already been set into motion, and I became just another observer of a tsunami, a juggernaut that could not be stopped.

It should be noted, however, that Howard tried to raise money via a non-profit, his Dora Weiner Foundation, from 1983 through 1986. During this 3 year period do-gooders only kicked in about $10K, hardly enough to launch an effort to bring ibogaine to the world. It wasn't until Howard formed NDA International, Inc., a for-profit corporation, did significant cash start rolling in to finance this against-all-odds project. I remember people did see potential in securing patents and opening for-profit treatment centers, given the potential (and highly conservative) estimate of a patient base of a half million narcotic addicts in the United States.

From Simon Witter and the drugs-forum in the U.K. is an unabridged version of an article that appeared in The Times Magazine (London), July 1998. It is a detailed account of the disastrous struggle Howard Lotsof faced in the final years of our company, NDA International. It is also a breathless testament to the addict ibogaine experience and it illuminates why this gift to mankind will never go away.

The piece begins:

It may change society and save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people (at a conservative estimate), but ibogaine development is being tied up in a bitter legal war that has already almost ruined the man who discovered it. Is this the blessed chalice, the cure to drug addiction and more? Is it the greatest pharmaceutical discovery of the late 20th century? Or will it turn out to be just another story of a maverick visionary being shafted, and all benefits lost to mankind?

Click to read the entire article, A Journalist Investigates Ibogaine: Its Effects and Its Politics.

This blog is dedicated to Howard Lotsof

Ibogaine hydrochloride is an alkaloid derived from an African rainforest shrub, Tabernanthe Iboga, and used as a sacrament in the ancient native Bwiti religion during initiation ceremonies.

In 1962, nineteen year old Howard Lotsof accidentally discovered that ibogaine can interrupt heroin and other addictions for extended periods of time, while completely eliminating withdrawal symptoms. He would live with this knowledge for the next two decades, a secret very much like a defused nuclear warhead, ready to be armed and detonated upon the world.

I met Howard and his wife Norma Alexander in 1973 as a freshman at New York University's film school. They immediately befriended me (more on this in later blogs), and eventually we became swept up in each other's lives.

This blog concerns itself with all things ibogaine. It is presented as a forum and resource for a growing community of open-minded, compassionate individuals involved in a currently underground revolution of the human spirit and mind.

I dedicate this blog to Howard and Norma Lotsof, without whom there would be little if no hope for those suffering the slavery of addiction.