Ibogaine List Archives - 2002-12

From: Ustanova Iboga <Iboga@guest.arnes.si>
Subject: [ibogaine] best wishes
Date: December 31, 2002 at 8:06:10 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Hi everybody,

we are in 2003 already, and americans are a year behind…

Ha ha ha ha!!!

Anyway, I wish everyone reading this an IBOgainised 2003!

;-))

Marko

From: Gamma <gammalyte9000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 31, 2002 at 6:41:55 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

— HSLotsof@aol.com wrote:

In a message dated 12/30/02 2:29:19 PM, gammalyte9000@yahoo.com writes:

There are a few of us who still want you (Dana) to try Ibo, then you can
speak
from a first person perspective on the Ibogaine experience. (hint)

First person…yes. but, not from an opioid dependent perspective.

Howard

No, we wouldn’t want Dana all smacked back… LOL

-gamma (dh)

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From: Brett Calabrese <bcalabrese@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] >ibogaine-unsubscribe@mindvox.com<
Date: December 31, 2002 at 8:40:42 AM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Mike

Send an email to “ibogaine-unsubscribe@mindvox.com”
(without the “”). That means “TO:” needs to have
“ibogaine-unsubscribe@mindvox.com” in it when you
send, not the subject as you just did and sent to
ibogaine@ibogaine@mindvox.com, this will not work –
leave the entire rest of the email blank, nothing in
the subject, nothing in the BCC or CC, nothing in the
text – only fill in the “TO” with
“ibogaine-unsubscribe@mindvox.com” and send.
— “M.KEANE” <michaelkeane@compuserve.com> wrote:
Message text written by
INTERNET:ibogaine@mindvox.com
ibogaine-unsubscribe@mindvox.com<

Hi,
Please unsybscribe me, I appreciate your efforts but
I dont want upto 20-30
e-mails of other peoples e-mails to-and-from
eachother a day cloging up my
mail box
Thanks
Mike

__________________________________________________
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From: “preston peet” <ptpeet@nyc.rr.com>
Subject: [ibogaine] outburst- a new years tale
Date: December 31, 2002 at 5:36:31 AM EST
To: <drugwar@mindvox.com>
Cc: “CRRH” <restore@crrh.org>, <ibogaine@mindvox.com>
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Hi all,
Happy New Year wishes to all of you and yours today. In light of the day
and the fact that many places of business are closed today, perhaps leaving
some of your with a bit of time on your hands, I send you this link to
Chapter 2 of my book Something in the Way. Feel free to pass this around, if
you know anyone who might enjoy it.
Some New Years start out better, more peaceful if not quite as
interesting, than others.

http://www.drugwar.com/psitwoutburst.shtm

Outburst- a New Years Tale
chapter 2 of Something in the Way
by Preston Peet
posted at DrugWar.com Dec. 31, 2002
(photo)
Rotterdam at New Year

In some twisted way it makes perfect sense to him. The only way to insure
that he’ll go through with killing himself by morning is to piss off those
people most likely to really hurt or kill him if he gets them angry enough.

It’s New Years Eve in Rotterdam, 1991. Thomas and his girl had planned an
evening at a party with some of her co-workers, but Thomas is banned from
the bar where she works. Her co-workers have no trouble spotting the signs
of addiction, nor realizing it has been him raiding the office safe. He
really doesn’t want to deal with them, so he stands Jennifer up, finding her
gone and the attic apartment they share dark when he finally arrives. She’s
taken all of their CD’s and tapes with her, and he thinks for a second that
she’s done it to play them at the party, but he can’t kid himself. Four
hours late, closer to five, she knows what he’s been doing. Everyone in
Rotterdam knows by now. He looks like shit, loosing weight, accumulating an
air of desperation about him. Even his dealers have been telling him to slow
down. Fat chance.
snip-
read chapter at above URL.

Peace,
Preston Peet
ptpeet@nyc.rr.com
Editor http://www.drugwar.com
Editor at Large High Times mag/.com
“Prohibition creates an irresistibly lucrative
opportunity for entrepreneurs willing to operate
in illicit business. It is the policy
of idealists who cannot appreciate that the use
of drugs often reflects other sets of human
ideals: human perfectibility, the yearning
for a perfect moment, the peace that comes
from oblivion.” Richard Davenport-Hines

From: “M.KEANE” <michaelkeane@compuserve.com>
Subject: [ibogaine] >ibogaine-unsubscribe@mindvox.com<
Date: December 31, 2002 at 2:37:48 AM EST
To: “INTERNET:ibogaine@mindvox.com” <ibogaine@mindvox.com>
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Message text written by INTERNET:ibogaine@mindvox.com
ibogaine-unsubscribe@mindvox.com<

Hi,
Please unsybscribe me, I appreciate your efforts but I dont want upto 20-30
e-mails of other peoples e-mails to-and-from eachother a day cloging up my
mail box
Thanks
Mike

From: MARC <marc420emery@shaw.ca>
Subject: [ibogaine] What I have found regarding ibogaine & crack cocaine, more
Date: December 30, 2002 at 11:26:04 PM EST
To: Joshua Tinnin <krinklyfig@myrealbox.com>
Cc: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

The woman I sent to see Sara Glatt thinks Sara does a great job! Sara has
always been helpful to me.

We do ibo sessions for people largely for drug dependencies, but have the
ibo available who have self-destructive repetitious behavious like
over-eating, anger outbursts. We haven’t added spiritual awareness or any
other ayahuasca type experiences yet to our program, since we do not charge
for our service. Spiritual journeys are maybe in the future. I want to
improve the quality of life for those who recognize a need to change their
lives but who cannot find our kind of assistance.

I have three full time workers at Iboga House, a screener & introductory
facillatator (gets your paperwork, health scans, all the routine, etc
explained to prospective patients) and two facillitators who work at the
Iboga House with the patients. I administer the iboga and supervise the next
12 – 24 hours after administration, plus I determine the regimen to be given
to the patient. We have two pianos, 2 guitars, art supplies, exercise
equipment, a pastoral setting, lovely oceanside walks, a concerned, loving,
not-yet jaded staff, a beautiful house where it all happens.

We provide a therapy that could be IndraDK extract, ethnogarden extract, or
ibogaine hydrochloride, depending on what I think is best. It usually is two
treatments, 7 – 30 days apart, but small daily doses for crack cocaine abuse
has been included in the therapy.

Marc Emery
Iboga Therapy House

—– Original Message —–
From: “Joshua Tinnin” <krinklyfig@myrealbox.com>
To: <marc420emery@shaw.ca>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 7:30 PM
Subject: OFFLIST – Re: [ibogaine] What I have found regarding ibogaine &
crack cocaine

Marc,

I was wondering about something. Do you do ibo sessions for people who are
not opiate addicts? What I mean is, do you do sessions for people who have
come to terms with a different addiction, and are not currently using (but
maybe were within the last year or so), and feel strongly, after much
introspection, that it would be something that is worth doing? I
understand
your own personal reasons for wanting to facilitate ibo therapy, so was
just
curious what sort of pre-conditions someone might have to have at your
House. If you do, then what is the estimated cost? Also, who are the
practitioners, and do you do HCL, or iboga, or some combination? (Maybe
you’ve already answered some of this on the list, but have been busy, and
I
get a lot of email.) And, finally, have you ever talked much with Sara
Glatt? If so, would she be a practitioner you’d recommend? A few other
people I trust have said so, so thought it would be worth getting your
thoughts.

Thanks, and hope your new year brings much success with all that you’re
doing, ibo and otherwise.

– jt

—– Original Message —–
From: “MARC” <marc420emery@shaw.ca>
To: <ibogaine@mindvox.com>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 6:53 PM
Subject: [ibogaine] What I have found regarding ibogaine & crack cocaine

At Iboga Therapy House, we have found most patients have this response
that
Booker noted:

I took ibogaine I would say to myself, this is so awful, I will never
do
this again and I will never recommend it to anyone else. Then the
afterglow
kicks in and I love Iboga and everyone else on the planet and I’m sold.
Then
that wears off and I want to get high on opiates again so I take ibo again
and I’m saying I can’t believe I did this again. In most cases, at least
from what I’ve read, Ibo trips AINT fun. So you get to trade the lengthy
withdrawals of opiate dependency for the hell of a few hours in ibogaland.
And hopefully learn SOMETHING that keeps leading you into a more positive
direction.<<<

Opiate dependent people are easier to help off of opiates with ibogaine
than
crack cocaine addicts. People who want to be treated for heroin are
terrified of withdrawl and hate the lifestyle, so they are highly
motivated
to quit via ibogaine, and we have a good round of success with opiated
addicted people. Their lives still need revamping and reinvention from the
ground up and thats a challenge, but they have been very receptive to
ibogaine therapy.

The crack cocaine people we have treated have taught me something, they
don’t really want to quit, they simply can’t afford to indulge in their
vice
any longer and come to us because the finances of addiction have ruined
them. They would still like to smoke rock all day IF they had the money,
so
now that they have spent every cent, borrowed, stolen, and burned all
their
bridges, now their family is totally freaked, their dirty secret is out,
pressure is on from all quarters (family, friends, employer, partners,
etc)
to quit or else. No one comes to me and says, “I have this addiction to
cocaine and I want to quit before I ruin my finances and alienate everyone
around me,” they ONLY come to me when its “I’m totally broke, my family
is
completely freaked, I’ve got to quit…” (Because I can’t afford to be
hooked).

The fact is, as soon as they get money, ibogaine or not, they want crack.
My
original supposition, that is, if drugs were legal, crack would be cheap
so
it would NOT create these financial crises in the addicts is correct.
Better
they have the drug, get through this phase without the financial disaster
attached, and decide, when they are not pressured by financial & criminal
liabilities, to stop using (at all or as much). Prohibition is most of
their
problem.

I found that if cocaine people are kept away from cocaine AND money, they
don’t have a problem. There is no physical withdrawl, its all mental. And
they don’t think much about cocaine if they don’t have any money and are
no
where near a place to get cocaine. But give them money and put ’em near a
source, kiss the money goodbye, even if they just went weeks without it
almost effortlessly.

I have decided to change our regimen for crack cocaine users to one large
dose at the outset of treatment (so the ibogaine freaks them into being
serious) and then 20 – 30 days of 20 mg. of ibogaine hydrochloride daily.
We
shall see.

Also, I have this plant extract called Kratom I want to experiment on
crystal meth addicts (they actually don’t want to quit either, its the
finances) and for bringing methadone users down to lower levels.

I have also found that giving ibogaine to patients with MS (multiple
schlerosis) will make the MS act up shortly after the ibogaine, although I
would say they need to be advised of this but should not deter iboga
therapy. The MS flare-up brought on by ibogaine lasts about 2 – 3 days.

Marc Emery
Iboga Therapy House

From: MARC <marc420emery@shaw.ca>
Subject: [ibogaine] What I have found regarding ibogaine & crack cocaine
Date: December 30, 2002 at 9:53:14 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

At Iboga Therapy House, we have found most patients have this response that Booker noted:

>>>I took ibogaine I would say to myself, this is so awful, I will never do this again and I will never recommend it to anyone else. Then the afterglow kicks in and I love Iboga and everyone else on the planet and I’m sold. Then that wears off and I want to get high on opiates again so I take ibo again and I’m saying I can’t believe I did this again. In most cases, at least from what I’ve read, Ibo trips AINT fun. So you get to trade the lengthy withdrawals of opiate dependency for the hell of a few hours in ibogaland. And hopefully learn SOMETHING that keeps leading you into a more positive direction.<<<

Opiate dependent people are easier to help off of opiates with ibogaine than crack cocaine addicts. People who want to be treated for heroin are terrified of withdrawl and hate the lifestyle, so they are highly motivated to quit via ibogaine, and we have a good round of success with opiated addicted people. Their lives still need revamping and reinvention from the ground up and thats a challenge, but they have been very receptive to ibogaine therapy.

The crack cocaine people we have treated have taught me something, they don’t really want to quit, they simply can’t afford to indulge in their vice any longer and come to us because the finances of addiction have ruined them. They would still like to smoke rock all day IF they had the money, so now that they have spent every cent, borrowed, stolen, and burned all their bridges, now their family is totally freaked, their dirty secret is out, pressure is on from all quarters (family, friends, employer, partners, etc) to quit or else. No one comes to me and says, “I have this addiction to cocaine and I want to quit before I ruin my finances and alienate everyone around me,” they ONLY come to me when its “I’m totally broke, my family is completely freaked, I’ve got to quit…” (Because I can’t afford to be hooked).

The fact is, as soon as they get money, ibogaine or not, they want crack. My original supposition, that is, if drugs were legal, crack would be cheap so it would NOT create these financial crises in the addicts is correct. Better they have the drug, get through this phase without the financial disaster attached, and decide, when they are not pressured by financial & criminal liabilities, to stop using (at all or as much). Prohibition is most of their problem.

I found that if cocaine people are kept away from cocaine AND money, they don’t have a problem. There is no physical withdrawl, its all mental. And they don’t think much about cocaine if they don’t have any money and are no where near a place to get cocaine. But give them money and put ’em near a source, kiss the money goodbye, even if they just went weeks without it almost effortlessly.

I have decided to change our regimen for crack cocaine users to one large dose at the outset of treatment (so the ibogaine freaks them into being serious) and then 20 – 30 days of 20 mg. of ibogaine hydrochloride daily. We shall see.

Also, I have this plant extract called Kratom I want to experiment on crystal meth addicts (they actually don’t want to quit either, its the finances) and for bringing methadone users down to lower levels.

I have also found that giving ibogaine to patients with MS (multiple schlerosis) will make the MS act up shortly after the ibogaine, although I would say they need to be advised of this but should not deter iboga therapy. The MS flare-up brought on by ibogaine lasts about 2 – 3 days.

Marc Emery
Iboga Therapy House

—- Original Message —–
From: booker w
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 4:48 PM
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?

>From: Dana Beal

>Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

>To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

>Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?

>Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 19:18:47 -0500

>>Yep I’m the third person who’s got to echo this sentiment,

>>specifically to Dana. Selling ibogaine as a “cure”will make your

>>voice as invalid as a parent who tries to sell their kid on “one

>>hit of marijuana automatically sends you down the road to

>>addiction.” My opinion – either try it, or quit touting it the way

>>you do… (please?)

>>Sandy Watson

>Okay. But it’s not a maintenance drug, either.

>Chemotherapy sounds too scary, even though it’s a lot closer to what

>Ibogaine does.

>It’s a “cure” in the common English sense of something you use to

>get RID of the addiction–something you don’t have to keep taking

>everyday for 9 mos. like trexan–just whenever you feel a relapse

>coming on. Which is fairly infrequently. And that’s the point.

>Common usage does convey that maintenance drugs can be dispensed

>with when the course of treatment is over. Those are called

>”treatments.” They keep you alive, but they don’t get rid of the

>HIV, or the addiction, or whatever.

>Dana/cnw
Well, the biggest problem now comes in about whether addiction is even a medical issue or “disease” anyway. Ibogaine is just something a person who, as Patrick says, wants to get “unsprung, ” might try. It may or may not do that. It will give you a “restart” button as far as opiate tolerance goes and that’s one of the neatest things about it. I was so happy I could get high on a little bit of codeine instead of a bunch of morphine, after my first ibo trip, so I guess ibogaine COULD be abused in that sense…
However, every time I took ibogaine I would say to myself, this is so awful, I will never do this again and I will never recommend it to anyone else. Then the afterglow kicks in and I love Iboga and everyone else on the planet and I’m sold. Then that wears off and I want to get high on opiates again so I take ibo again and I’m saying I can’t believe I did this again. In most cases, at least from what I’ve read, Ibo trips AINT fun. So you get to trade the lengthy withdrawals of opiate dependency for the hell of a few hours in ibogaland. And hopefully learn SOMETHING that keeps leading you into a more positive direction.
If addiction isn’t a disease, it doesn’t need a cure. If it is a very strange chronic condition ( I think of it like an obsessive/compulsive disorder) who knows what will work. Every single approach whether it’s 12 steps, treatment, rehab, ibogaine, or nothing at all, some people get “unsprung” and some don’t. Why that is is a total mystery to me anyway. But having the option to try ibogaine I think would be of super value and I support that totally. I also support giving heroin addicts heroin like they do in some countries and let people find their own way without all the hassle that “prohibition” brings on. Raising kids in loving homes where we learn to manage our feelings in a positive way, I think would be the biggest deterent of all for all addictions. JMO. Thanks for the interesting discussion anyway. Boy do I feel like getting high today!!
Sandy again.

Protect your PC – Click here for McAfee.com VirusScan Online

From: Bill Ross <ross@cgl.ucsf.EDU>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 30, 2002 at 8:02:10 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

I can’t understand why someone who is such a
big promoter of ibogaine won’t take it.

Mash might be another case of this, but I think it’s wrong to
expect someone to take ibo. The observed results are what should
determine whether it’s worth promoting.

Bill Ross

From: “booker w” <swbooker@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 30, 2002 at 7:48:45 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

>From: Dana Beal

>Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

>To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

>Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?

>Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 19:18:47 -0500

>>Yep I’m the third person who’s got to echo this sentiment,

>>specifically to Dana. Selling ibogaine as a “cure”will make your

>>voice as invalid as a parent who tries to sell their kid on “one

>>hit of marijuana automatically sends you down the road to

>>addiction.” My opinion – either try it, or quit touting it the way

>>you do… (please?)

>>Sandy Watson

>Okay. But it’s not a maintenance drug, either.

>Chemotherapy sounds too scary, even though it’s a lot closer to what

>Ibogaine does.

>It’s a “cure” in the common English sense of something you use to

>get RID of the addiction–something you don’t have to keep taking

>everyday for 9 mos. like trexan–just whenever you feel a relapse

>coming on. Which is fairly infrequently. And that’s the point.

>Common usage does convey that maintenance drugs can be dispensed

>with when the course of treatment is over. Those are called

>”treatments.” They keep you alive, but they don’t get rid of the

>HIV, or the addiction, or whatever.

Protect your PC – Click here for McAfee.com VirusScan Online
From: Dana Beal <dana@cures-not-wars.org>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 30, 2002 at 7:18:47 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Yep I’m the third person who’s got to echo this sentiment,
specifically to Dana. Selling ibogaine as a “cure”will make your
voice as invalid as a parent who tries to sell their kid on “one hit
of marijuana automatically sends you down the road to addiction.”
My opinion – either try it, or quit touting it the way you do…
(please?)

Sandy Watson

Okay. But it’s not a maintenance drug, either.

Chemotherapy sounds too scary, even though it’s a lot closer to what
Ibogaine does.

It’s a “cure” in the common English sense of something you use to get
RID of the addiction–something you don’t have to keep taking
everyday for 9 mos. like trexan–just whenever you feel a relapse
coming on. Which is fairly infrequently. And that’s the point.

Common usage does convey that maintenance drugs can be dispensed with
when the course of treatment is over. Those are called “treatments.”
They keep you alive, but they don’t get rid of the HIV, or the
addiction, or whatever.

Dana/cnw

From: “landon merritt” <glmkeoki@msn.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 30, 2002 at 7:16:02 PM EST
To: <ibogaine@mindvox.com>
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

To whom it may concern,
Over the past 12 hours or so I have been sent 10 e-mails from you. I don’t know who you are and with all due respect, don’t want to know. I don’t know how you got my address or why you feel I need your info. So, delete my address and have a happy new year.
—– Original Message —–
From: HSLotsof@aol.com
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 7:10 PM
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
In a message dated 12/30/02 2:29:19 PM, gammalyte9000@yahoo.com writes:

>There are a few of us who still want you (Dana) to try Ibo, then you can
>speak
>from a first person perspective on the Ibogaine experience. (hint)

First person…yes. but, not from an opioid dependent perspective.

Howard

Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com

From: HSLotsof@aol.com
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 30, 2002 at 7:09:27 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

In a message dated 12/30/02 2:29:19 PM, gammalyte9000@yahoo.com writes:

There are a few of us who still want you (Dana) to try Ibo, then you can
speak
from a first person perspective on the Ibogaine experience. (hint)

First person…yes. but, not from an opioid dependent perspective.

Howard

From: crownofthorns@hushmail.com
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 30, 2002 at 6:59:54 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

lol, Dana sorry but when patrick took the microphone away from you and made a joke about that at san francisco, he did say what a lot of us think. you’ve written millions of words it seems like about ibogaine, what it’s like to do ibogaine, you support ibogaine against addiction, but you’ve never been a addict or taken ibogaine. I don’t expect you to go shoot heroin for 10 years or whatnot bro, you have patrick for all that, but I can’t understand why someone who is such a big promoter of ibogaine won’t take it. what does that say?

Peace out,
Curtis

On Mon, 30 Dec 2002 15:37:20 -0800 booker w <swbooker@hotmail.com> wrote:
<html><div style=’background-color:’><DIV>
<P>Yep I’m the third person who’s got to echo this sentiment, specifically
to Dana.  Selling ibogaine as a “cure”will make your voice
as invalid as a parent who tries to sell their kid on ”one
hit of marijuana automatically sends you down the road to addiction.”  
My opinion - either try it, or quit touting it the way you
do… (please?)</P></DIV>
<P>Sandy Watson</P>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>>From: Gamma <GAMMALYTE9000@YAHOO.COM>
<DIV></DIV>>Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
<DIV></DIV>>To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
<DIV></DIV>>Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment
Works… or does it?
<DIV></DIV>>Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 11:28:43 -0800 (PST)
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>— preston peet <PTPEET@NYC.RR.COM>wrote:
<DIV></DIV>> >You
<DIV></DIV>> > keep using the word “cure” Dana, which it doesn’t
and hasn’t ever struck my
<DIV></DIV>> > admittedly non-personally experienced self
as.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>I feel compelled to chime in on this, – Touting Ibogaine
as a ‘cure’ is not
<DIV></DIV>>correct, having done it myself twice. I am not cured
of my desire to do
<DIV></DIV>>opiates, but Ibogaine did give me a “clean slate”
from which to “begin again”
<DIV></DIV>>with. Ibogaine is a treatment, something for those
of us who have exhuasted
<DIV></DIV>>every other means of kicking the habit, for those
of us who need that extra
<DIV></DIV>>special bit of psychedelic encouragement, enlightenment,
or asskicking, or all
<DIV></DIV>>of the above.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>There are a few of us who still want you (Dana) to
try Ibo, then you can speak
<DIV></DIV>>from a first person perspective on the Ibogaine experience.
(hint)
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>-DH
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>> > —– Original Message —–
<DIV></DIV>> > From: Dana Beal
<DIV></DIV>> > To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
<DIV></DIV>> > Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2002 1:10 PM
<DIV></DIV>> > Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit:
Treatment Works… or does
<DIV></DIV>> > it?
<DIV></DIV>> >
<DIV></DIV>> >
<DIV></DIV>> > And yes Alison, heroin/opiates do leave the
body fairly quickly, in that
<DIV></DIV>> > I could use heroin tonight, (but won’t of course)
and not have a urine test
<DIV></DIV>> > turn up positive within 72 hours, max.
<DIV></DIV>> > That doesn’t mean that my body wouldn’t miss
it of course. It’s even,
<DIV></DIV>> > in my mind, that quick loss of opiates from
my body that made me feel sick
<DIV></DIV>> > from having no dope.
<DIV></DIV>> > Peace,
<DIV></DIV>> > Preston
<DIV></DIV>> >

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From: “booker w” <swbooker@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Ibogaine treatment experiences
Date: December 30, 2002 at 6:42:09 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Hi Eliana. My ibo treatment experiences are posted at ibogaine.co.uk under “experiences” if you’d like to read some more. Best wishes, Sandy Watson

>From: Eaquinet@aol.com

>Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

>To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

>Subject: [ibogaine] Ibogaine treatment experiences

>Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 13:35:05 EST

>Hi, I read the JAMA article (and accompanying anecdotes) with GREAT interest.

> I would love to hear from anyone who has had a treatment experience with

>Ibogaine (successful or otherwise, positive or not) as I am seriously

>considering this. Especially anyone who had daily methadone dosing prior to

>their ibogaine treatment. thanks SO MUCH. Sincerely, many blessings, Eliana

The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 3 months FREE*.
From: “booker w” <swbooker@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 30, 2002 at 6:37:20 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Yep I’m the third person who’s got to echo this sentiment, specifically to Dana. Selling ibogaine as a “cure”will make your voice as invalid as a parent who tries to sell their kid on “one hit of marijuana automatically sends you down the road to addiction.” My opinion – either try it, or quit touting it the way you do… (please?)
Sandy Watson

>From: Gamma

>Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

>To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

>Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?

>Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 11:28:43 -0800 (PST)

>— preston peet wrote:

> >You

> > keep using the word “cure” Dana, which it doesn’t and hasn’t ever struck my

> > admittedly non-personally experienced self as.

>I feel compelled to chime in on this, – Touting Ibogaine as a ‘cure’ is not

>correct, having done it myself twice. I am not cured of my desire to do

>opiates, but Ibogaine did give me a “clean slate” from which to “begin again”

>with. Ibogaine is a treatment, something for those of us who have exhuasted

>every other means of kicking the habit, for those of us who need that extra

>special bit of psychedelic encouragement, enlightenment, or asskicking, or all

>of the above.

>There are a few of us who still want you (Dana) to try Ibo, then you can speak

>from a first person perspective on the Ibogaine experience. (hint)

>-DH

> > —– Original Message —–

> > From: Dana Beal

> > To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

> > Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2002 1:10 PM

> > Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does

> > it?

> >

> > And yes Alison, heroin/opiates do leave the body fairly quickly, in that

> > I could use heroin tonight, (but won’t of course) and not have a urine test

> > turn up positive within 72 hours, max.

> > That doesn’t mean that my body wouldn’t miss it of course. It’s even,

> > in my mind, that quick loss of opiates from my body that made me feel sick

> > from having no dope.

> > Peace,

> > Preston

> >

> > But don’t you think many of the statements in the article are obsolete or

> > just wrong in light of the existence of ibogaine? Cocaine for instance– I’ve

> > heard of coke users taking just 20 mg of ibo a day for 16 days as the best

> > way to transition off stimulants without the Big Bang of the typical opiate

> > detox.

> >

> > When do you think the crowd around ethan and peele will get around to

> > processing the ibogaine information?

> >

> > It’s good for the legalization movement, you know.

> >

> > The existence of a medical treatment/cure for addictions (incl. legal

> > addictions).

> >

> > Dana/cnw

> >

>__________________________________________________

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>Yahoo! Mail Plus – Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.

>http://mailplus.yahoo.com

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From: Brett Calabrese <bcalabrese@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] ibogaine question seattle
Date: December 30, 2002 at 5:57:51 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Ibogaine isn’t a very strong
“hallucinogen” it’s
equivalent to no more than roughly 300-500mcg of
LSD. If the visions are
distressing, then just open your eyes, they will
recede.

Ibogaine isn’t strong enough to FORCE you to
confront anything, you can
avoid it. On 3-5mg+ of LSD you really, REALLY do
not have that option.
Whether you decide you want it or not at that point,
you’re going.

Ummmm, Patrick that is not fair. While I agree that
ibogaine is not as psychadelic as LSD you are
comparing normal ibogaine doses with super-normal LSD
doses – not regular LSD doses. Maybe you should do
40-50mg I.P. or 100mg/KG orally – what is that about
10gm or so of HCL for you orally??? which are also
more in-line with ritual dosages of ibogaine. Then
maybe you will find ibogaine to be “strong”… They
don’t use the term “crack the skull” for nothing (lol)

Brett

On the flipside, LSD ain’t gonna do nothin’ ’bout
your habit.

| Thanks for talk and your time, for me you made it
much
| eaisier to understand difference between ultra
rapid
| and other detox and what ibogaine feel like, but
you
| confuse me with 12 step and if you like ibogaine
or
| not.

I like ibogaine, the 12-steps are something that
works out for some
people, and does damage to many more who are
subjected to this bullshit as
the “only answer,” to drug dependence, and confuse
their failure to get in
tune with this cult, as having anything whatsoever
to do with stepping out
of drug dependence.

What that means: if you actually WANT to get off
drugs, and the 12-steps
don’t work out for you, it does not mean you’re
damned, not ready, or
hopeless; it just means maybe you should find
something else to do.

Patrick

__________________________________________________
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From: “M.KEANE” <michaelkeane@compuserve.com>
Subject: [ibogaine] List Commands
Date: December 30, 2002 at 5:44:30 PM EST
To: “INTERNET:ibogaine@mindvox.com” <ibogaine@mindvox.com>
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Hello Mindvox peoples,

I am a Musickian,artist,poet,magickian,writer and utter despot headonist
who got stuck with a 5 gram a day heroin habit 11 years ago-stopped taking
heroin 7 years ago but ended up with a 110ml a day i.v. methadone habit,
stopped sticking needles in myself when the veins ran out 3 years ago but
am still on aural 110mls a day- I really wanna get off this shit, have
tried 5 times,but the withdrawls scare the shit out of me cause they last
SOOOO long,
I want to try IBOGAINE but cant find anywhere in the uk that will supply me
with it,
PLEASE can ANYBODY HELP ME FIND AN OUTLET FOR IBOGAINE????

Please all at Mindvox- check out my website,( url below), I am a genius and
very talented but this nasty stuff methadone is killing my soul , I am SO
alone and isolated that I havent even had sex for 8 years !!!!! And Im a
horny taurean too !!! 🙂
Ive gotta get off this stuff!!!

best wishes and regards to all at mindvox for the new year
lots of love & strength to you all
Mike Keane
URL http://www.ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/michaelkeane/
IF THIS DOSENT WORK DO A SEARCH FOR “GaiaMusick” and you should find my
site, I run my own record label and have released over 7 LP’s

From: “M.KEANE” <michaelkeane@compuserve.com>
Subject: [ibogaine] >ibogaine-unsubscribe@mindvox.com<
Date: December 30, 2002 at 4:45:43 PM EST
To: “INTERNET:ibogaine@mindvox.com” <ibogaine@mindvox.com>
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Message text written by INTERNET:ibogaine@mindvox.com
ibogaine-unsubscribe@mindvox.com<

From: “Patrick K. Kroupa” <digital@phantom.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] ibogaine question seattle
Date: December 30, 2002 at 4:14:57 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

On [Fri, Dec 27, 2002 at 05:52:01PM -0800], [Xiang Lee Chen] wrote:

| what I have read on mindvox answers some questions in
| parts but it’s not a sensibile whole. You are very
| very smart and write extremely well but it is like you
| take pages and re arrange them in no right order. I
| cannot follow, I think this is intentional but I don’t
| understand mindvox at all except art, not followable
| information

I’m just incoherent.

| My questions please.
|
| At Seattle when asked about the 12 steps you gave a
| nice reply and said that upward of 50% of addicted
| persons who take ibogaine used the 12 steps. In this
| issue of heroin times you are very negative about 12
| steps. I know you do not use them but you gave very
| nice reply at talk, then wrote a article which
| completely invalidates them. I don’t understand.

What’s in “this issue” of Heroin Times, is sumthin’ I wrote ’bout 2 years
ago; he is simply recycling my material. A lot of that particular space
in time, is just me working out my shit and venting, to sum it up, “HA!
Fuck all of you stupid fucking pieces of shit who ripped me off, handed me
lead weights while I was drowning and attempted to inflict psychological
damages on me while I was in an extremely vulnerable state. Who’s still
standing is me, and who has gone down in fucking flames are 95% of the
weak-willed idiots who ever got in my face with their bullshit.”

In short, it’s an emotional response that represents my feelings about
being subjected to “drug treatment” and the comedy routine known as rehab.
But that was a while ago, and it’s kinda like, okay, the sun rose in the
east today, and the 12 steps still suck, so what else is new.

The 12 steps are sumthin’ to do — other than drugs. They’re extremely
old eastern concepts for dismantling ego, rewritten and dumbed-down for
drug dependent individuals who are acclimated to western culture.
Somewhere along the way, all of that turned into the Cult of Eternal
Powerlessness where you can sit and spin, complain about shit for all
eternity, and shine up the altar you’ve built to your idealized former
self.

An organized alternative to the 12-steps, which many people on this list
seem to find useful is SMART. I’ve never done it personally, but reading
through their spin control, I haven’t found much I disagree with.

Uhm, I dunno their URL offhand, Randy does I’m sure.

| In JAMA article you are quoted as saying that on
| ibogaine you “went to hell and got killed 1000 times”
| which is same as you said at talk when you did
| ibogaines to detox from drugs, but at your talk you
| gave very dark experiences but it was very funny not
| like you would not do ibogaine again, you said you
| will do ibogaine again at talk. You also said ibogaine
| very mild, not near as strong as LSD.

Yeah I did, it wasn’t much fun, but it certainly didn’t deter me from
doing ibogaine again. Ibogaine isn’t a very strong “hallucinogen” it’s
equivalent to no more than roughly 300-500mcg of LSD. If the visions are
distressing, then just open your eyes, they will recede.

This is both good and bad. What it amounts to is walking into the lobby
where a movie is playing, you can go sit in the movie, or if you don’t
like it, you can wander back out and land right on, “fuck this, it didn’t
work, I knew it wouldn’t, nothing ever does, where’s my dealer at…”
Ibogaine isn’t strong enough to FORCE you to confront anything, you can
avoid it. On 3-5mg+ of LSD you really, REALLY do not have that option.
Whether you decide you want it or not at that point, you’re going.

On the flipside, LSD ain’t gonna do nothin’ ’bout your habit.

| Thanks for talk and your time, for me you made it much
| eaisier to understand difference between ultra rapid
| and other detox and what ibogaine feel like, but you
| confuse me with 12 step and if you like ibogaine or
| not.

I like ibogaine, the 12-steps are something that works out for some
people, and does damage to many more who are subjected to this bullshit as
the “only answer,” to drug dependence, and confuse their failure to get in
tune with this cult, as having anything whatsoever to do with stepping out
of drug dependence.

What that means: if you actually WANT to get off drugs, and the 12-steps
don’t work out for you, it does not mean you’re damned, not ready, or
hopeless; it just means maybe you should find something else to do.

Patrick

From: “Randy Hencken” <randyhencken@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Ibogaine treatment experiences
Date: December 30, 2002 at 4:24:01 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Hi Eliana,

I encourage you to give ibo a try, it was the best thing that happened to me. You can read my about experience at http://ibogaine-therapy.net/testimonial3.html There are also several other experiences on that web site.

Randy

From: Eaquinet@aol.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Subject: [ibogaine] Ibogaine treatment experiences
Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 13:35:05 EST

_________________________________________________________________
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From: “Patrick K. Kroupa” <digital@phantom.com>
Subject: [ibogaine] List Commands
Date: December 30, 2002 at 2:59:31 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

To all the people who have just landed here: welcome, God bless, peace be
with you, etcetera. We are scheduled to Storm the Reality Studio —
checking watch — Any Minute Now!

This is not MindVox, this is the ibogaine list. When Vox relights, the
list will be accessible from within the interface, or you can continue
using it exactly as you are right now — from whatever mail client or web
mail service you make use of. The main difference between the two, is
that the Vox interface offers a much greater range of commands, options,
features, bugs, pretty graphics, threading based on name, date, topic,
whatever, and filters to nonexist people you never want to hear from
again (including spam and script-kiddie noise).

If you want a general list of options and features, send to:

ibogaine-help@mindvox.com

To get OFF this list:

ibogaine-unsubscribe@mindvox.com

To write a message to everybody on this list, send email to:
ibogaine@mindvox.com If you need to ask me something which only I can
answer — then mahn are you in trouble; I meant to say, you can send me
email, but it would prolly be a better idea to just toss it into the list.

As of this moment pretty much everybody who has ever dosed drug dependent
human beings with ibogaine is reading this list. A large variety of
people who have gotten unsprung using ibogaine, at more or less every
treatment provider on the planet, are also here. Ask away. Somebody will
have insights to offer you.

A complete list of all the commands exists in help, which, to repeat:

ibogaine-help@mindvox.com

Patrick

From: Brett Calabrese <bcalabrese@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Ibogaine treatment experiences
Date: December 30, 2002 at 2:31:30 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Eliana,

Welcome to the board. Yes I had (my first) ibogaine
treatment in ’99, done it a number of times since and
am VERY happy. I strongly advise you to plan on more
than once, the 2nd will be different since you will
not be addicted to an opiate. Makes you feel GREAT!!!!
though it could take a while with meth to get right,
or a 2nd treatment, some time… but no real
withdrawal/pain, most cravings are gone.

Where were you planning on getting treatment? FYI,
here are some sources of ibo, BE CAREFUL AND FOLLOW
ADVICT TO THE LETTER if you take it yourself.

Indra@indra.dk – indra.dk has a 5X Tabernathe Iboga
extract
Enthnogarden.com sells a 16X T. Iboga extract,
ibogaine HCL as well as root
Marko Iboga@guest.arnes.si sells ibogaine HCL.

No, they will not ship to the USA. If you get ibo, get
more than you think you will need, you will need it…

Good luck
Brett

— Eaquinet@aol.com wrote:
Hi, I read the JAMA article (and accompanying
anecdotes) with GREAT interest.
I would love to hear from anyone who has had a
treatment experience with
Ibogaine (successful or otherwise, positive or not)
as I am seriously
considering this. Especially anyone who had daily
methadone dosing prior to
their ibogaine treatment. thanks SO MUCH.
Sincerely, many blessings, Eliana

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus – Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
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From: Gamma <gammalyte9000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 30, 2002 at 2:28:43 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

— preston peet <ptpeet@nyc.rr.com> wrote:
You
keep using the word “cure” Dana, which it doesn’t and hasn’t ever struck my
admittedly non-personally experienced self as.

I feel compelled to chime in on this, – Touting Ibogaine as a ‘cure’ is not
correct, having done it myself twice. I am not cured of my desire to do
opiates, but Ibogaine did give me a “clean slate” from which to “begin again”
with. Ibogaine is a treatment, something for those of us who have exhuasted
every other means of kicking the habit, for those of us who need that extra
special bit of psychedelic encouragement, enlightenment, or asskicking, or all
of the above.

There are a few of us who still want you (Dana) to try Ibo, then you can speak
from a first person perspective on the Ibogaine experience. (hint)

-DH

—– Original Message —–
From: Dana Beal
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2002 1:10 PM
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does
it?

But don’t you think many of the statements in the article are obsolete or
just wrong in light of the existence of ibogaine? Cocaine for instance– I’ve
heard of coke users taking just 20 mg of ibo a day for 16 days as the best
way to transition off stimulants without the Big Bang of the typical opiate
detox.

When do you think the crowd around ethan and peele will get around to
processing the ibogaine information?

It’s good for the legalization movement, you know.

The existence of a medical treatment/cure for addictions (incl. legal
addictions).

Dana/cnw

__________________________________________________
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From: Gamma <gammalyte9000@yahoo.com>
Subject: [ibogaine] Re: [IBOGAINE] Ibogaine September 2002 molacule of the month
Date: December 30, 2002 at 2:17:27 PM EST
To: ibogaine@lists.calyx.nl
Cc: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/ibogaine/ibogaine.htm

Brett,

I’ll comment on the article later but, the correct url is

<http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/ibogaine/ibogainej.htm>

they both are correct URLs, but the second one has very cool java applets
showing Ibogaine and MC3 molecules in 3d – you can click and drag on them to
see different perspectives – once they load.

-dh

__________________________________________________
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From: Eaquinet@aol.com
Subject: [ibogaine] Ibogaine treatment experiences
Date: December 29, 2002 at 1:35:05 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Hi, I read the JAMA article (and accompanying anecdotes) with GREAT interest. I would love to hear from anyone who has had a treatment experience with Ibogaine (successful or otherwise, positive or not) as I am seriously considering this. Especially anyone who had daily methadone dosing prior to their ibogaine treatment. thanks SO MUCH. Sincerely, many blessings, Eliana
From: Brett Calabrese <bcalabrese@yahoo.com>
Subject: [ibogaine] Ibogaine September 2002 molacule of the month
Date: December 30, 2002 at 12:45:23 PM EST
To: ibogaine@ibogaine.org, ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Did I miss this being posted???

I disagree that ibogaine is a one shot deal. From what
I have seen those advocating it as such are usually
not people who have done ibogaine.

Brett

http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/ibogaine/ibogaine.htm

There is not much in the plant world that people have
not sniffed, snorted, smoked, rubbed in, injected or
attempted to get inside their bodies in other ways in
the hope of eliciting someone kind of magical
response. The well-known plants that gave a positive
result in the primitive tests – the coca plant,
poppies, marijuana, tobacco, betel trees, coffee beans
– have since grown infamous leaving the air heavy with
their tragic scent in so many places.

If plants are our downfall, then they might also be
our salvation. An African shrub – Tabernanthe iboga
(right) – related to the coffee plant, offers some
kind of hope for those who are addicted to alkaloid
charms. Iboga has, like countless other herbal
products, been used in traditional ceremonies and
medicine for hundreds, if not thousands of years. In
particular, in tropical West Africa it is a well-known
hallucinogen used in male rites of passage but also as
a tool by hunter to increase awareness and allow them
to remain very still for prolonged periods. The
physiologically active compound is an indole alkaloid
called ibogaine*. Surprisingly though, ibogaine is not
itself addictive and even more intriguing is that it
seems to have anti-addictive qualities. Take this drug
and it cures addiction to another.

The main claim made by advocates of ibogaine for
treating drug addiction is that one dose is generally
enough. With ibogaine, there is no need for weeks and
weeks of regular methadone to stave off the chilling
withdrawal symptoms of heroin, nor the increasing
possibility of addiction to the treatment itself
emerging. The fear of the detoxification process is
claimed by drug rehabilitation centres to be the major
obstacle to most addicts beating their habit. One dose
– or at the most intermittent doses for two years –
can it is claimed remove the destructive addiction of
several hard drugs – cocaine and heroin, for instance
– but even alcohol and nicotine. It is especially
effective in those who actually want to give up.

Ibogaine – click for 3D structure

Howard Lotsof (below) is the man who holds the patents
on using ibogaine to treat cocaine dependence, opiate
addiction and multiple drug addiction disorders. He
has championed its use in treating drug addiction for
thirty years having experimented with it as a heroin
addict himself in the 1960s. Basically, he and friends
looking for a new high tried the drug and discovered
after a rather prolonged hallucinogenic experience
that their craving for heroin had simply vanished – or
at least that’s what he reports. Lotsof began years
later – having succumbed to heroin again and having
followed a full detoxification treatment – that there
might be money to be made in this heroin cure.

The product he hopes to market goes by the rather
obvious name Endabuse and is causing a stink in the US
law courts. The Federal Drug Administration and
National Institute for Drug Addiction will soon be
locked in battle with a neurologist studying the drug
and Lotsof’s company NDA International.

NDA International convinced several researchers to
take a close look at ibogaine’s effects on opiates
several years ago. One of the scientists Stanley
Glick, at Albany Medical College found that in lab
rats treated with ibogaine before a morphine
injection, the release of the neurotransmitter
dopamine was partially blocked. (Dopamine is thought
to be responsible for reinforcing the pleasurable
effects of drugs of abuse.) Glick also discovered that
following ibogaine injection, rats with free access to
morphine cut down on their intake and had less
withdrawal symptoms.

In 1992, he published a review of the research into
ibogaine. These promising results, led, in 1993, to
the FDA establishing a phase I trial of the drug
headed by University of Florida neuroscientist Deborah
Mash. However, when patient in the trial died of an
overdose in 1994, the FDA called an immediate halt to
further research. Ibogaine remains a restricted
compound in the US.

Recently, the political machinations surrounding the
drug hit the news again when legal proceedings were
scheduled in Miami involving Mash and Lotsof. Mash
continues to research ibogaine as an anti-addiction
treatment at a centre in the Caribbean at which,
allegedly, professionals with a drug problem can drop
in, pay their $12000, and be cured of their addiction.

Lotsof, as well as having various complaints about the
cancelling of the Phase I trials, claims that Mash, in
studying the drug is infringing his patent. Mash,
however, wants the patents cancelled, citing Lotsof’s
lack of a scientific background against her standing
as a senior neurologist. Mash insists that once she
has reasonable evidence of ibogaine being effective
and safe in treatment she will launch a US trial. She
has also filed her own patents on ibogaine
derivatives. Both Mash and Lotsof are determined
people – a date is yet to be set for the legal battle
but it will undoubtedly be vicious.

No definitive mode of action of ibogaine’s supposed
anti-addiction properties has yet been described. The
molecular basis for addiction itself is not understood
so this is unsurprising. However, ibogaine is known to
be antagonistic to N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)
receptors. These receptors are thought to mediate some
of the acute effects of drugs of abuse but by blocking
them one may block the development of compulsive drug
seek and taking. Ibogaine also seems to have activity
in many neurotransmitter systems including serotonin
uptake sites and sigma sites. It might be that its
complexity of action has something to do with its
activity. To confuse the picture still further there
is also a putative long-lasting metabolite,
O-desmethylibogaine which has not been investigated
closely yet. However, according to Piotr Popik a
psychopharmacologist at the Institute of Pharmacology,
Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraków, working mainly on
the mode of action of “anti-addictive” drugs, The NMDA
antagonistic actions are enough to explain most of the
‘anti-addictive’ effects of ibogaine.’

Not all scientists are convinced of the healing
properties of those suffering addiction. Among
ibogaine’s side-effects are ataxia (loss of muscle
coordination), nausea, vomiting and raised blood
pressure. The compound also causes tremors,
hallucinations and apprehension. Moreover, there is
still the death to consider in the cancelled FDA
trials.

Could ibogaine stop the addiction
to deadly drugs such as heroin?

Popik is somewhat sceptical of ibogaine’s potential.
Popik co-authored the review with Glick. He points out
that ibogaine is not in fact unique, ‘All of the known
antagonists of the NMDA receptor produce
‘anti-addictive’ effects in animal models of
compulsive drug seeking and taking.’ A simple test he
and his colleagues carried out demonstrated that
ibogaine is indeed an NMDA antagonist but the fact is
there are countless other less harmful compounds with
this same activity. Ibogaine produces a lot of
neuropathological changes in the cerebellum, Popik
adds. ‘Briefly: I would not give it to my mother!’ he
told Catalyst. Meanwhile, Glick’s team at Albany
Medical College has developed a synthetic iboga
alkaloid 18-methoxycoronaridine (18-MC). Their animal
tests show that 18-MC has similar activity to ibogaine
but may not have ibogaine’s hallucinogenic properties.

The differences between 18-MC and Ibogaine.
[Click image for 3D structure of 18-MC]
(taken from
http://www.amc.edu/academic/Research/cnnResearcher.cfm?ID=130)

The extraction of ibogaine from the roots and bark of
Tabernanthe were first described in JACS in 1958 and
its synthesis again in JACS in 1966, these classic
recipes have quickly found their way out of the
student locker and into Internet folklore, just as
have methods for making fireworks and LSD. Aside from
growing interest sparked by the Internet, ibogaine
does not seem to have made its way on to the streets.
Drug-pushers are perhaps wary of selling something
that could cut their markets for other drugs in one
fell swoop.

Something is also keeping ibogaine from the medical
mainstream. Could it be that the authorities believe
the existence an anti-addictive would actually
increase drug abuse as users would experiment keenly,
knowing that a quick and easy escape route was
available to them. With the UK government revealing
results of research that show heroin use is spreading
out from the inner cities and into the shires, and the
Home Office predicting an epidemic of addiction, it is
perhaps time to take a closer look at the weapons we
use to wage the war on drugs.

References
* For those who cannot resist a bit of nomenclature
here is ibogaine:
7-Ethyl-6,2,7,8,9,10,12,13-octahydro-2-methoxy-6,9-methano
5H-pyrido(1′,2′:1,2- azepine(4,5-)indole. It also goes
by the name of NIH 10567 and Endabuse.

The first report of the putative anti-addictive
properties: Dzoljic ED, Kaplan CD, Dzoljic MR, Effects
of Ibogaine on Naloxone-Precipitated Withdrawal
Syndrome in Chronic Morphine- Dependent Rats, Archive
of International Pharmacodynamics, 1988, 294, 64-70.

The Ibogaine Dossier – many links from here about
Ibogaine.

Further reading: P. Popik and P. Skolnick,
‘Pharmacology of Ibogaine and Ibogaine-Related
Alkaloids’, The Alkaloids, Academic Press, 1998, pp.
197-231.

This article originally appeared in The Alchemist on
ChemWeb.com

David Bradley is a freelance science writer based in
Cambridge, England, he can be reached through his
website: www.sciencebase.com.

Back to the Molecule of the Month page

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From: Gamma <gammalyte9000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] PKD Spectrum Introduction to Zero Point Energy
Date: December 29, 2002 at 11:45:46 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

The possibility that electromagnetic zero-point energy may be involved in the
production of inertial and gravitational forces opens the possibility that
both inertia and gravitation might someday be controlled and manipulated.
This could have a profound impact on propulsion and space travel.

not to mention the price of oil and the price of tea in China.

-gamma

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From: “Joshua Tinnin” <krinklyfig@myrealbox.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 29, 2002 at 5:33:01 PM EST
To: “Ibogaine” <ibogaine@mindvox.com>
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

—– Original Message —–
From: “Dana Beal” <dana@cures-not-wars.org>

It’s good for the legalization movement, you know.
The existence of a medical treatment/cure for addictions (incl.
legal addictions).<

that’s why I mentioned “current accepted treatments” in my prior
note about Shavelson’s “Hooked” book Dana.
;-))
Peace,
Preston

I think you will agree this needs more than a mention, though. Look
at the number of statements in the article that have to be altered if
the ibogaine info is factored in. Not to mention having a different
conclusion.

Anyone care to try it?
–>>

I thought about that, too, which is why I sent it to this list. Actually,
what I was hoping is that someone here who can speak with authority about
ibogaine, such as Dana, Marc, Brent, Patrick … many more, would write
to this Dr. Fitzpatrick and let him know about it. I can’t find an email
address, but there is a form to send email about this article here:
http://www.spiked-online.com/forms/LetterToTheEditor2.asp?sendto=10&section=health&id=00000006DB92

– jt

From: “Joshua Tinnin” <krinklyfig@myrealbox.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 29, 2002 at 5:27:44 PM EST
To: <ibogaine@mindvox.com>
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

I didn’t write this. Dr Michael Fitzpatrick did. I am not sure what his
email address is, but the article originally appeared here –
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000006DB92.htm

– jt

—– Original Message —–
From: “Alison Senepart” <aa.senepart@xtra.co.nz>

After reading your mail and digesting it all I can’t say I agree with it
all. Are you quoting from books and literature or have you been addicted to
heroin, cocaine or any other substance. Sounds to me as if you are quoting
from passages or literature that you have read but I could be wrong. How
can you state that heroin leaves the body rapidly etc. If thats the case
perhaps you could explain spending days in bed sweating, vomiting, turbulent
bowels and in general feeling like shite for days. My experience is that it
takes weeks to clean up not hours. The reason most people resort to
Methadone is to deal with these symptoms, especially after years of using
drugs and repeatedly going cold turkey which gets worse and harder as you
get older and more tolerarant. If you have a job and need to get up and be
there or have children to look after methadone at least lets you achieve
some sort of capability. You said that addiction is not a sickness but a
choice as I understand your mail which is probably quite true in the
beginning when you think you can control your life and what you do but has
no bearing further down the track when you find yourself totally emmeshed in
an endless cycle that you want to get out of but don’t know how or are
scared , hurting and totally screwed up. Your mail seemed to state that all
the answers are there to be had but I’m not sure thats true for everyone. I
thought your writing was very arrogant and self-righteous but perhaps I
picked it up incorrectly and am a bit prickly. Would like to hear your
reply. Allison

From: “Joshua Tinnin” <krinklyfig@myrealbox.com>
Subject: [ibogaine] test – ignore
Date: December 29, 2002 at 10:45:14 PM EST
To: “Ibogaine” <ibogaine@mindvox.com>
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Just testing. Delete me now. Do it! Stop reading this!

From: Gamma <gammalyte9000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] changes
Date: December 29, 2002 at 11:32:46 PM EST
To: Iboga@guest.arnes.si
Cc: digital@phantom.com

— Ustanova Iboga <Iboga@guest.arnes.si> wrote:
Hi all,

there are some changes at
http://www.geocities.com/ibopictures/price.html

Marko

Hey Marko,

are those pictures of you in the initiation ceremony? very cool.

We love the microscopic piks of the crystals!

Dr. Kroupa mentioned to me that you are starting a religion based around Iboga,
and he asked me about creating art for it. I’m interested, lets talk more about
it, eh?

I am playing with the idea of the NYC conference, but its pretty expensive for
me, as I live in Hawaii now. Not sure if I can make it.

Hope all is well in Eastern Europe…

-Dave Hunter

p.s. I think we met at the 1999 NYC conference?

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From: “preston peet” <ptpeet@nyc.rr.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 30, 2002 at 10:30:28 AM EST
To: <ibogaine@mindvox.com>

Not sure why you think it’s obsolete Dana, unless the lack of attention to ibogaine is the reason. But are there any studies that point to a better long-term success rate for ibogaine than any other drug “treatment” modality? Or is ibogaine simply one more method for some (key word here) people to change their perspective? You keep using the word “cure” Dana, which it doesn’t and hasn’t ever struck my admittedly non-personally experienced self as. Anecdotally, I’ve yet to hear of many real success stories, if “getting off drugs” is the criteria for success. Even getting off dope doesn’t always seem to be the effect, at least, no more than with any other treatment I’ve yet heard of. It does seem to help some people find new paths they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, find before trying it, but even repeated use (over 16 days straight? Yikes. Sound interesting, but 16 days straight? Wow.) doesn’t seem to do everyone the same way either Dana.
I’m copying this to a few people in case the ibogaine list is also down.
Peace,
Preston
—– Original Message —–
From: Dana Beal
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2002 1:10 PM
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?

But don’t you think many of the statements in the article are obsolete or just wrong in light of the existence of ibogaine? Cocaine for instance– I’ve heard of coke users taking just 20 mg of ibo a day for 16 days as the best way to transition off stimulants without the Big Bang of the typical opiate detox.

When do you think the crowd around ethan and peele will get around to processing the ibogaine information?

It’s good for the legalization movement, you know.

The existence of a medical treatment/cure for addictions (incl. legal addictions).

Dana/cnw

From: Dana Beal <dana@cures-not-wars.org>
Subject: [ibogaine] does some one on this list speak Catalan?
Date: December 29, 2002 at 2:42:56 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

From: “farid” <farid@no-log.org>
To: “Dana Iboga – Beal” <dana@cures-not-wars.org>
Subject: Fw: [Icn-drugs] Conference Iboga(ine) le 6 decembre 2002
Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2002 13:22:18 +0100
X-Priority: 3
Status:
Hi Dana,
Well, find below one contact for Iboga in Spain, may you can touch him directly ?
All the best,
FARId
PS : Please I changed my datas. Please cancel everything with gfarid@free.fr, or dalilaa@free.fr,
NOW it is FARId GHEHIOUECHE farid@no-log.org 06 148 156 79 ; 5, rue de Tombouctou 75018 PARIS
—– Original Message —–
From: A.U.M.M.O.
To: farid
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 3:37 PM
Subject: Re: [Icn-drugs] Conference Iboga(ine) le 6 decembre 2002

Jos Carbonell
Coordinador de A.U.M.M.O.
aummo@hotmail.com
Tle. +34 615681422 Fax. +34 938601416
C/ Joan Camps i Gir, 3
CP. 08400- Granollers ( Valles Oriental )
Barcelona- Espaa

From: Dana Beal <dana@cures-not-wars.org>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 28, 2002 at 5:46:12 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

>It’s good for the legalization movement, you know.
The existence of a medical treatment/cure for addictions (incl. legal addictions).<

that’s why I mentioned “current accepted treatments” in my prior note about Shavelson’s “Hooked” book Dana.
;-))
Peace,
Preston

I think you will agree this needs more than a mention, though. Look at the number of statements in the article that have to be altered if the ibogaine info is factored in. Not to mention having a different conclusion.

Anyone care to try it?

Dana/cnw

From: “preston peet” <ptpeet@nyc.rr.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 28, 2002 at 1:47:19 PM EST
To: <ibogaine@mindvox.com>
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

>It’s good for the legalization movement, you know.
The existence of a medical treatment/cure for addictions (incl. legal addictions).<

that’s why I mentioned “current accepted treatments” in my prior note about Shavelson’s “Hooked” book Dana.
;-))
Peace,
Preston
—– Original Message —–
From: Dana Beal
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2002 1:10 PM
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?

But don’t you think many of the statements in the article are obsolete or just wrong in light of the existence of ibogaine? Cocaine for instance– I’ve heard of coke users taking just 20 mg of ibo a day for 16 days as the best way to transition off stimulants without the Big Bang of the typical opiate detox.

When do you think the crowd around ethan and peele will get around to processing the ibogaine information?

It’s good for the legalization movement, you know.

The existence of a medical treatment/cure for addictions (incl. legal addictions).

Dana/cnw

From: Jon Freedlander <jfreed1@umbc.edu>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 28, 2002 at 1:14:05 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

On Sun, 29 Dec 2002, Alison Senepart wrote:

heroin has a half-life (that is, the amount of time it takes for half of
the amount of drug taken to be eliminated) of 2 – 6 hours, depending on
the method of administration.

withdrawal symptoms are not a result of the drug being left in the system,
rather while the drug is present, withdrawal symptoms do not occur. this
is one of the rationals of methadone maintenence; since it has a longer
half life than heroin, the user can take it less frequently while still
avoiding withdrawal. unfortunately, the flip side of that is that
methadone can be more difficult to get off, since it stays in the body
longer.

in any case, opiate withdrawal occurs primarily because, after becoming
dependent on an opiate, the body’s production of endorphins is diminished.
endorphins are morphine like chemicals that protect the body from pain.

basically, when one takes opiates for an extended period of time, the body
goes “oh, ok. you’re putting these endorphin like things in me, so i dont
need to keep making em”. then, when the opiate use stops, it takes a
little while before your body realises “hey, shit. i need to start making
endorphins again”.

__________________________________________________________________________
Jon Freedlander userpages.umbc.edu/~jfreed1
Consulting Editor
Journal of Drug Education and Awareness
http://www.novapublishers.com/journals/drugawareness.html
– –
————————————————————————–
“We are all prisoners of our minds. This realization is the first step
on the journey to freedom.”
— Ram Dass

From: Dana Beal <dana@cures-not-wars.org>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 28, 2002 at 1:10:57 PM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

But don’t you think many of the statements in the article are obsolete or just wrong in light of the existence of ibogaine? Cocaine for instance– I’ve heard of coke users taking just 20 mg of ibo a day for 16 days as the best way to transition off stimulants without the Big Bang of the typical opiate detox.

When do you think the crowd around ethan and peele will get around to processing the ibogaine information?

It’s good for the legalization movement, you know.

The existence of a medical treatment/cure for addictions (incl. legal addictions).

Dana/cnw

From: “preston peet” <ptpeet@nyc.rr.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 28, 2002 at 9:28:30 AM EST
To: <ibogaine@mindvox.com>
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

And yes Alison, heroin/opiates do leave the body fairly quickly, in that I could use heroin tonight, (but won’t of course) and not have a urine test turn up positive within 72 hours, max.
That doesn’t mean that my body wouldn’t miss it of course. It’s even, in my mind, that quick loss of opiates from my body that made me feel sick from having no dope.
Peace,
Preston
—– Original Message —–
From: Alison Senepart
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2002 6:09 AM
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?

>—– Original Message —–
>From: ReconsiDer
>
>reconsiDer: TIDBIT
>
>We’d all like to believe that the “solution” to our country’s drug problems
>lies in treatment rather than prison but does it? We know the problems with
>coerced treatment, but what about voluntary treatment… the “treatment on
>demand” that so many of us call for, does that work? A British doctor
>questions the whole idea of treatment in this interesting piece below.
>
>The Rehab Don’t Work
>
>19 December 2002
>
>by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick
>
>'”No way could I have done this without detox and rehab” says Gale, 29.
“I’d
>probably be dead or in jail. I’d totally lost control of my life and hit
>rock bottom. I’d say I was suicidal.”‘ (1)
>
>Mark Gale was one of the first residents of the Oxford Drugs Recovery
>Project, which provides accommodation and drug treatment for homeless drug
>addicts. He spent three months on a ‘maintenance’ dose of methadone, then
>underwent gradual withdrawal with reducing doses of methadone over the next
>month. During this time he attended two therapy groups a day, had
one-to-one
>counselling and took part in social activities with other residents.
>
>This was a ‘stepping stone’ to a six-month residential rehabilitation
>programme in London, followed by three-months aftercare to accompany his
>move into supported housing near the rehabilitation centre.
>
>The problem identified in this article is that ‘Gale is one of the lucky
>ones’: services for detox and rehab are available for only a small
>proportion of homeless drug abusers. The author welcomes recent government
>proposals for a dramatic increase in the provision of treatment services of
>this sort.
>
>Indeed, ‘detox’ and ‘rehab’ were the central themes of the ‘Updated Drug
>Strategy’ launched by home secretary David Blunkett on 30 November. Though
>the government has been widely criticised over some aspects of its drug
>policy (such as its relaxation of measures against cannabis and its
>endorsement of the prescription of heroin by doctors), even its staunchest
>critics welcome the new report’s emphasis on treatment.
>
>The key shift signalled by the promotion of ‘detox and rehab’ is away from
a
>’law and order’ approach to the drug problem towards a new therapeutic
>strategy, emphasising education, treatment and support. (It is not
>surprising that Keith Hellawell, the drug tsar, had to go: New Labour’s
>crusade against drugs needs a social worker or a counsellor, not a
>policeman, as its symbolic head.) ‘Detox and rehab’ now go together like
>’rum and coke’, but what do they mean?
>
>’Detox’
>
>The use of the term ‘detoxification’ in relation to the problems of drug
>addiction appears in many ways idiosyncratic. It was used in the past to
>refer to the process of removing some poisonous substance from the body.
But
>the substances from which people now seek to be ‘detoxed’ – alcohol,
heroin,
>cocaine – are not poisons. Indeed they all have therapeutic uses as well as
>a range of familiar beneficial effects. It is true that they may all be
>harmful in excessive or habitual use, but that is true of most medications.
>
>Whereas the traditional process of detoxification was limited to the
removal
>of the toxic substance from the system, this is only a small part of the
>aims of the modern detox. Drugs of abuse, such as heroin and cocaine, tend
>to have a short duration of action and are cleared from the body within
>hours (the same is true of alcohol). Indeed this rapidity of effect and
>clearance is linked to their tendency to induce dependency: users seek to
>maintain or repeat the high by further ingestion. (This is also why people
>tend not to get addicted to anti-depressants, which take effect over weeks
>rather than hours.)
>
>Modern detox does nothing to accelerate the – already rapid – clearance of
>drugs >from the body. The distinctive feature of contemporary detox regimes
>is that, rather than simply removing one drug, they tend to replace it with
>another. Thus alcohol is commonly replaced with a benzodiazepine (such as
>chlordiazepoxide) and methadone is substituted for heroin. The role of
these
>substituted drugs is not to remove the problem drug, but to counteract
>symptoms which may result from its withdrawal – such as fits in alcoholics
>and muscle cramps in heroin addicts.
>
>It is worth noting that both these substitute drugs are also ‘toxic’ in
>overdose, and both are also associated with problems of long-term
>dependence. The conviction on 17 December of Kathleen McCluskey, from
>Cambridge, for the manslaughter of two men (she was accused of killing two
>more and of attempting to do the same to a fifth) by administering
methadone
>to them confirms the lethality of this drug (2).
>
>The concept of detox is most strained when it is applied to cocaine.
Cocaine
>produces a very rapid effect (a major part of its appeal) and it is also
>rapidly cleared (requiring frequently repeated doses for those habituated
to
>its use). However, unlike heroin, it does not require increasing doses to
>produce the same effect, so it does not produce a characteristic physical
>dependency.
>
>But whereas heroin can be replaced with methadone, no drug has been found
to
>substitute for cocaine. Despite a vast amount of research, mainly in the
>USA, and experimentation with numerous drugs, including anti-depressants,
>anti-convulsants, opiate antagonists and beta-blockers, nothing seems to
>work. As one recent account by Max Daly in the UK Guardian concluded:
‘there
>is currently no strong evidence to support the general use of medicines as
a
>way to ease withdrawal, reduce cocaine craving or promote abstinence.’ (3).
>A survey by the Royal College of Psychiatrists came to the same conclusion
>(4).
>
>The solution recommended by Max Daly was that cocaine addicts should be
>’placed on a residential “detox” programme’. The National Treatment Agency
>(NTA) is piloting 10 such schemes in the New Year. What is the nature of
the
>detox treatment on offer? According to the NTA chief executive Paul Hayes,
>the key is ‘cognitive behavioural approaches, particularly around relapse
>prevention and consolidating people’s motivation’.
>
>The schemes aim to provide ‘a structured series of counselling, group
>therapy and relapse prevention programmes’. Such is the fluidity of
concepts
>in this therapeutic universe that ‘detox’ has metamorphosed into ‘rehab’.
>
>’Rehab’
>
>’The belief that one is powerless and that one’s actions are somehow
>controlled by forces other than one’s own choices is discouraging and
>demoralising.’ (5)
>
>The concept of rehabilitation once meant restoring to their previous
>condition those whose standing in society had been impaired by injury or
>illness or some other misfortune (including their own deviant behaviour).
In
>its modern form, shortened in letters, but – as the case of Mark Gale
>indicates – not necessarily in duration, rehab does not seek to restore the
>status quo ante. It aims to effect a transition from dependence on drugs to
>dependence on some form of professional therapeutic intervention.
>
>Programmes of residential rehabilitation emerged out of the therapeutic
>community movement that flourished in the USA in the 1960s. One of the
>earliest therapeutic communities for drug addicts was Synanon, set up by
the
>charismatic Charles Dederich in California (6). Synanon pioneered a
>confrontational, hierarchical approach that assumed that drug addicts had
>intrinsic – and possibly intractable – personality defects that needed to
be
>challenged through long-term intensive therapy. Membership involved
>surrendering all personal rights and being treated as a child not allowed
to
>make personal decisions. Treatment involved forceful re-education and
>structured humiliation.
>
>Synanon became notorious when Dederich became obsessed with the notion that
>clients who left the community were betraying him. He employed a security
>force to coerce clients into staying and was ultimately convicted for
>placing a rattlesnake in the mailbox of a lawyer representing dissident
>clients (7). In his book The Meaning of Addiction, Stanton Peele notes that
>former Dederich supporters, including celebrities such as Jane Fonda,
>claimed that Dederich’s actions violated the Synanon philosophy. ‘In fact’,
>Peele comments, ‘his response was the natural consequence of the Synanon
>credo that membership in the community is a lifetime proposition’ (8).
>
>A wide range of secular and religious organisations now offer residential
>rehab programmes on the therapeutic community model. Some are more
>autocratic, some more democratic; some insist on abstinence from forbidden
>substances, others take a more liberal approach. But they share a
commitment
>to communal living, group and individual therapy, and shared domestic and
>leisure activities. A survey by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2000
>noted that there were more than 100 centres in the UK offering residential
>rehab; the figure is now certainly higher (9).
>
>Given the popularity of the therapeutic approach pioneered by Alcoholics
>Anonymous (AA) in contemporary rehab programmes, it merits a brief
>discussion. After the end of Prohibition in the USA in the 1930s, the AA
>movement combined the evangelical fervour of the Temperance campaign with
>the modern theory that alcoholism was a disease rather than a moral
failing.
>The first two of the now-famous ’12 steps’ through which AA guides its
>adherents to sobriety require that they admit ‘powerlessness’ over alcohol
>and submit themselves to ‘a Power’ greater than themselves (six of the
steps
>refer to the deity).
>
>For AA, alcoholism is a life-long illness against which only total
>abstinence can prevail, in an indefinite process of recovery. As Stanton
>Peele, a veteran campaigner against the AA approach in the USA, observes,
>the style of AA groups is derived from the Protestant revival meeting,
>’where the sinner seeks salvation through personal testimony, public
>contrition, and submission to a higher power’ (echoes of this style are
>apparent in the testimony of Mark Gale, quoted above) (10).
>
>Through a combination of skilful self-promotion, endorsement by the medical
>and psychiatric professions and encouragement from state authorities, AA
has
>become a major influence in the USA – and in other Western countries. Its
>approach has spread far beyond alcohol to other areas of addiction,
>including sex and gambling, and, of course, through Narcotics Anonymous
>(NA), to drugs.
>
>A patient of mine was recently admitted – at the expense of the health
>authority – to a residential rehab programme at a clinic that describes
>itself as ‘one of the leading centres in Europe’. According to the clinic
>letter, she sought ‘treatment for chemical dependency on cannabis, cocaine
>and ecstasy’ (though, in pharmacological terms, none of these drugs induces
>chemical dependency). The centre’s prospectus outlines its theory of
>addiction: ‘We believe that addiction to alcohol and drugs (chemical
>dependency) is a chronic, progressive, primary and incurable disease, not a
>problem of morals or willpower. The disease, if left unchecked, will prove
>terminal.’
>
>The clinic provides five phases of treatment based on the AA model: ‘the
>most important and difficult phase of the treatment is to break through the
>patient’s denial.’ Yet, ‘once patients have accepted they have a disease
>they are able to progress through the programme to begin their recovery’.
>During treatment, my patient ‘began to accept powerlessness and
>unmanageability and how this relates to the use of chemicals’. After eight
>weeks she was discharged home with recommendations that she maintain ‘total
>abstinence from alcohol and all mood-altering substances’, that she attend
>regular meetings of AA and NA and that she receive ‘aftercare follow-up’ at
>the clinic’s own ‘aftercare unit’. She relapsed shortly afterwards.
>
>’Treatment works’?
>
>’Many people who oppose the ‘war on drugs’ say that the ‘solution’ to the
>’problem’ is ‘treatment’. This is baloney. Addiction treatment is a scam.’
>(11)
>
>The phrase ‘treatment works’ is repeated like a mantra in the government’s
>’Updated Drug Strategy’. Everybody in the world of drug policy is desperate
>to believe that it is true. Indeed it is supported by evidence from
research
>that is either carried out directly by government agencies (such as the
>National Treatment Outcomes Research Study) or commissioned by them. But
are
>such studies reliable? Here the British authorities might learn from the
>(vast) experience of the USA in this field.
>
>Research on the efficacy of treatment programmes for problems of addiction
>in the USA follows a now-familiar pattern. This begins when promoters of a
>new scheme or programme claim dramatic successes (often accompanied by
media
>and celebrity endorsements). Early studies, often influenced by the
>enthusiasm of the promoters and the zeal of those they have cured, tend to
>confirm impressive results. Later, when the publicity had died down and
>independent researchers take a more dispassionate view of the outcomes of
>treatment over a longer period, the extravagant claims cannot be sustained.
>
>Writing 25 years ago, Griffith Edwards, one of the leading British
>authorities on alcoholism, summed up the problem: ‘It is not only that the
>research literature is poor in reports which suggest that any particular
>treatment is advantageous; on the contrary, it is rich in reports which
>demonstrate that a given treatment is no better than another.’ (12) This
>does not mean that nobody benefits from treatment. It is simply that they
do
>not seem to do so at any higher rate than without treatment. As Jeffrey
>Schaler, a trenchant critic of these methods, puts it: ‘One treatment tends
>to be just about as effective as any other treatment, which is just about
as
>effective as no treatment at all.’ (13) Both Schaler and Peele provide
>examples that substantiate these conclusions.
>
>In his book The Therapeutic State, another American critic, James Nolan,
>presents a detailed account of the drug courts in Dade County, Florida
(13).
>These courts pioneered the diversion of drug abusers from the criminal
>justice system into treatment programmes, developing a model that has been
>taken up widely in the USA – and now features prominently in British drug
>policy. Nolan shows that the claims for the success of these programmes
have
>not been borne out by independent scrutiny. He reveals how the redefinition
>of goals and a number of statistical scams have contributed to the
>impression that ‘treatment works’.
>
>A recent British account draws together the results of a number of studies
>of long-term patterns of heroin use (14). These reveal that many users
>spontaneously give up the drug of their own accord, without benefit of
>detox, rehab or any other professional intervention. The authors reckon
that
>’at least five to 10 percent manage this every year’ and estimate that the
>average length of a ‘serious heroin-using career is about 15 to 20 years’.
>
>They emphasise that ‘this figure is independent of treatment’: ‘There is no
>evidence to date that any form of treatment makes any difference to length
>of heroin use.’ They conclude that ‘people give up when they are ready to
do
>so. Events in their lives are much more important in making this decision
>than anything that occurs in the clinic’.
>
>The dangers of detox/rehab
>
>’Rehabilitation is shite; sometimes ah think ah’d rather be banged up.
>Rehabilitation means the surrender ay the self’, wrote Irvine Welsh in
>Trainspotting (15)
>
>If the best that can be said of the detox/rehab approach is that it is
>ineffective, the more serious charge against it is that it reinforces a
>concept of addiction that is degrading to people with drug problems and
>results in the further diminution of their autonomy.
>
>Behind the manifold absurdities of ‘detox’ lies a conception of drugs as an
>autonomous malign power over individuals and society. This tendency to make
>drugs a fetish pervades the government’s ‘Updated Drug Strategy’, which
>refers to the ‘damage caused by drugs’ to communities and to the need to
>’protect young people from drugs’.
>
>But drugs are inanimate material; they have no will or power of their own.
>As Schaler observes, ‘drugs don’t cause addiction’: people choose to use
>them for a variety of reasons, often to help them cope with problems of
>living (even though the costs may appear to exceed the benefits). Stanton
>Peele and Archie Brodsky insist that ‘it is important to place addictive
>habits in their proper context, as part of people’s lives, their
>personalities, their relationships, their environments, their perspectives’
>(16).
>
>The preoccupation with the supposedly objective ‘toxic’ character of drugs,
>and the notion of addiction as a disease, leave the subjectivity of the
drug
>user out of the picture. Yet as Peele and Brodsky emphasise, any attempt to
>influence addictive behaviour must take into account the wider realities of
>the life of the individual in society. It is only as targets of the ‘war on
>drugs’ that drug users come into focus: it is of course impossible to wage
>war against pharmaceuticals, only against those who use them.
>
>Though the AA’s 12-step approach has crossed the Atlantic, it is
regrettable
>that its critics are not yet widely known in Britain: as a result, rehab
>clinics using these techniques have become widely established with
virtually
>no public controversy.
>
>Peele and Brodksy summarise the flaws of the AA model as follows: ‘it is
>’religious and dogmatic’, demanding strict adherence to the group policy
and
>not allowing personal choices or individual variations; it ‘undermines
>individual confidence’ by insisting on members’ weaknesses and predicting
>the worst outcomes for those who violate group policies; it reinforces the
>’addict identity’ and discourages people from emerging out of it; it
focuses
>on the addiction and the group itself, ignoring the quality of members’
>lives outside the group. (17)
>
>The authors do not deny that AA groups have proven effective for some
>people. But the basic premise of AA – that the individual is powerless and
>should seek to replace the control of one external force (drugs) with
>another (God, or, in the interim, the group) – can only intensify the loss
>of autonomy that leads to drug abuse in the first place.
>
>No doubt some rehab programmes reject the AA model. But by their very
>nature, residential schemes isolate the drug user from the context in which
>the problem has arisen. The intensity and intimacy of relations established
>among members of the therapeutic group – and between clients and
therapists,
>is likely to reinforce the client’s isolation from society. It is not
>surprising that residents quickly become drug-free in their communal home –
>or that they quickly relapse on leaving it. Though this is clearly why
there
>is such an emphasis on ‘aftercare’ and ‘follow-up’, it also indicates the
>client’s continuing dependency on the therapeutic relationship forged in
>rehab.
>
>The trend for drug users to be mandated to attend detox/rehab programmes,
by
>the police, the courts, occupational health services, reflects the
>authoritarian dynamic behind the therapeutic face of official drug policy.
>The therapeutic approach is not an alternative to the criminal justice
>approach to drug abuse, but proceeds in tandem with it. And, whereas a
>prison sentence comes to an end, therapy goes on for ever.
>
>But surely it is better to be dependent on therapy than to be hooked on
>heroin? Perhaps, but better still to live an independent life, free of both
>drugs and therapists.
>
>Dr Michael Fitzpatrick is the author of The Tyranny of Health: Doctors and
>the Regulation of Lifestyle, Routledge, 2000 (buy this book from Amazon
(UK)
>or Amazon (USA)), and a contributor to Alternative Medicine: Should We
>Swallow It? Hodder & Stoughton, 2002 (buy this book from Amazon (UK).
>
>Read on:
>
>spiked-issue: Drink and drugs
>
>(1) Guardian, 11 December
>
>(2) ‘Black Widow’ killed two with methadone, Guardian, 18 December 2002
>
>(3) Rocky road, Guardian, 23 October 2002
>
>(4) Royal College of Psychiatrists, Drugs: Dilemmas and Choices, Gaskell,
>2000, p176
>
>(5) Jeffrey A Schaler, Addiction is a Choice, Open Court, 2000, p40
>
>(6) Tom Carnath and Ian Smith, Heroin Century, Routledge, 2002, p 159
>
>(7) Stanton Peele, The Meaning of Addiction: an unconventional view, Jossey
>Bass, 1985, p144
>
>(8) Stanton Peele, The Meaning of Addiction: an unconventional view, Jossey
>Bass, 1985
>
>(9) Royal College of Psychiatrists, Drugs: Dilemmas and Choices, Gaskell,
>2000, p162
>
>(10) Stanton Peele, The Meaning of Addiction: an unconventional view,
Jossey
>Bass, 1985, p31
>
>(11) Jeffrey A Schaler, Addiction is a Choice, Open Court, 2000, p 141
>
>(12) Quoted by Jeffrey A Schaler, Addiction is a Choice, Open Court, 2000,
>p44
>
>(13) James Nolan, The Therapeutic State: justifying government at century’s
>end, New York University Press, 1998
>
>(14) Tom Carnath and Ian Smith, Heroin Century, Routledge, 2002, p171
>
>(15) Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting, Minerva 1993 , 1993, p181
>
>(16) T Stanton Peele and Archie Brodsky, The Truth About Addiction and
>Recovery, Fireside, 1992; p42
>
>(17) Stanton Peele and Archie Brodsky, The Truth About Addiction and
>Recovery, Fireside, 1992, p 314
>
>
>Associated links:
>
>Reprinted >from : http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000006DB92.htm
>
>Hope you are enjoying your Tidbits. If you’re not a member of ReconsiDer
and
>would like to join, please fill out our membership form. And be sure to
>visit our website.
>
>
>

From: “preston peet” <ptpeet@nyc.rr.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 28, 2002 at 8:57:44 AM EST
To: <ibogaine@mindvox.com>
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

Lonny Shavelson (sp?) does a great job of looking at this whole kit and
kaboodle in his book “Hooked”. He isn’t overly optimistic about current
treatments, (currently accepted treatments I mean), for drug abuse.
Peace,
Preston
—– Original Message —–
From: Alison Senepart
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Sent: Saturday, December 28, 2002 6:09 AM
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does
it?

—– Original Message —–
From: ReconsiDer

reconsiDer: TIDBIT

We’d all like to believe that the “solution” to our country’s drug problems
lies in treatment rather than prison but does it? We know the problems with
coerced treatment, but what about voluntary treatment… the “treatment on
demand” that so many of us call for, does that work? A British doctor
questions the whole idea of treatment in this interesting piece below.

The Rehab Don’t Work

19 December 2002

by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick

‘”No way could I have done this without detox and rehab” says Gale, 29.
“I’d
probably be dead or in jail. I’d totally lost control of my life and hit
rock bottom. I’d say I was suicidal.”‘ (1)

Mark Gale was one of the first residents of the Oxford Drugs Recovery
Project, which provides accommodation and drug treatment for homeless drug
addicts. He spent three months on a ‘maintenance’ dose of methadone, then
underwent gradual withdrawal with reducing doses of methadone over the next
month. During this time he attended two therapy groups a day, had
one-to-one
counselling and took part in social activities with other residents.

This was a ‘stepping stone’ to a six-month residential rehabilitation
programme in London, followed by three-months aftercare to accompany his
move into supported housing near the rehabilitation centre.

The problem identified in this article is that ‘Gale is one of the lucky
ones’: services for detox and rehab are available for only a small
proportion of homeless drug abusers. The author welcomes recent government
proposals for a dramatic increase in the provision of treatment services of
this sort.

Indeed, ‘detox’ and ‘rehab’ were the central themes of the ‘Updated Drug
Strategy’ launched by home secretary David Blunkett on 30 November. Though
the government has been widely criticised over some aspects of its drug
policy (such as its relaxation of measures against cannabis and its
endorsement of the prescription of heroin by doctors), even its staunchest
critics welcome the new report’s emphasis on treatment.

The key shift signalled by the promotion of ‘detox and rehab’ is away from
a
‘law and order’ approach to the drug problem towards a new therapeutic
strategy, emphasising education, treatment and support. (It is not
surprising that Keith Hellawell, the drug tsar, had to go: New Labour’s
crusade against drugs needs a social worker or a counsellor, not a
policeman, as its symbolic head.) ‘Detox and rehab’ now go together like
‘rum and coke’, but what do they mean?

‘Detox’

The use of the term ‘detoxification’ in relation to the problems of drug
addiction appears in many ways idiosyncratic. It was used in the past to
refer to the process of removing some poisonous substance from the body.
But
the substances from which people now seek to be ‘detoxed’ – alcohol,
heroin,
cocaine – are not poisons. Indeed they all have therapeutic uses as well as
a range of familiar beneficial effects. It is true that they may all be
harmful in excessive or habitual use, but that is true of most medications.

Whereas the traditional process of detoxification was limited to the
removal
of the toxic substance from the system, this is only a small part of the
aims of the modern detox. Drugs of abuse, such as heroin and cocaine, tend
to have a short duration of action and are cleared from the body within
hours (the same is true of alcohol). Indeed this rapidity of effect and
clearance is linked to their tendency to induce dependency: users seek to
maintain or repeat the high by further ingestion. (This is also why people
tend not to get addicted to anti-depressants, which take effect over weeks
rather than hours.)

Modern detox does nothing to accelerate the – already rapid – clearance of
drugs from the body. The distinctive feature of contemporary detox regimes
is that, rather than simply removing one drug, they tend to replace it with
another. Thus alcohol is commonly replaced with a benzodiazepine (such as
chlordiazepoxide) and methadone is substituted for heroin. The role of
these
substituted drugs is not to remove the problem drug, but to counteract
symptoms which may result from its withdrawal – such as fits in alcoholics
and muscle cramps in heroin addicts.

It is worth noting that both these substitute drugs are also ‘toxic’ in
overdose, and both are also associated with problems of long-term
dependence. The conviction on 17 December of Kathleen McCluskey, from
Cambridge, for the manslaughter of two men (she was accused of killing two
more and of attempting to do the same to a fifth) by administering
methadone
to them confirms the lethality of this drug (2).

The concept of detox is most strained when it is applied to cocaine.
Cocaine
produces a very rapid effect (a major part of its appeal) and it is also
rapidly cleared (requiring frequently repeated doses for those habituated
to
its use). However, unlike heroin, it does not require increasing doses to
produce the same effect, so it does not produce a characteristic physical
dependency.

But whereas heroin can be replaced with methadone, no drug has been found
to
substitute for cocaine. Despite a vast amount of research, mainly in the
USA, and experimentation with numerous drugs, including anti-depressants,
anti-convulsants, opiate antagonists and beta-blockers, nothing seems to
work. As one recent account by Max Daly in the UK Guardian concluded:
‘there
is currently no strong evidence to support the general use of medicines as
a
way to ease withdrawal, reduce cocaine craving or promote abstinence.’ (3).
A survey by the Royal College of Psychiatrists came to the same conclusion
(4).

The solution recommended by Max Daly was that cocaine addicts should be
‘placed on a residential “detox” programme’. The National Treatment Agency
(NTA) is piloting 10 such schemes in the New Year. What is the nature of
the
detox treatment on offer? According to the NTA chief executive Paul Hayes,
the key is ‘cognitive behavioural approaches, particularly around relapse
prevention and consolidating people’s motivation’.

The schemes aim to provide ‘a structured series of counselling, group
therapy and relapse prevention programmes’. Such is the fluidity of
concepts
in this therapeutic universe that ‘detox’ has metamorphosed into ‘rehab’.

‘Rehab’

‘The belief that one is powerless and that one’s actions are somehow
controlled by forces other than one’s own choices is discouraging and
demoralising.’ (5)

The concept of rehabilitation once meant restoring to their previous
condition those whose standing in society had been impaired by injury or
illness or some other misfortune (including their own deviant behaviour).
In
its modern form, shortened in letters, but – as the case of Mark Gale
indicates – not necessarily in duration, rehab does not seek to restore the
status quo ante. It aims to effect a transition from dependence on drugs to
dependence on some form of professional therapeutic intervention.

Programmes of residential rehabilitation emerged out of the therapeutic
community movement that flourished in the USA in the 1960s. One of the
earliest therapeutic communities for drug addicts was Synanon, set up by
the
charismatic Charles Dederich in California (6). Synanon pioneered a
confrontational, hierarchical approach that assumed that drug addicts had
intrinsic – and possibly intractable – personality defects that needed to
be
challenged through long-term intensive therapy. Membership involved
surrendering all personal rights and being treated as a child not allowed
to
make personal decisions. Treatment involved forceful re-education and
structured humiliation.

Synanon became notorious when Dederich became obsessed with the notion that
clients who left the community were betraying him. He employed a security
force to coerce clients into staying and was ultimately convicted for
placing a rattlesnake in the mailbox of a lawyer representing dissident
clients (7). In his book The Meaning of Addiction, Stanton Peele notes that
former Dederich supporters, including celebrities such as Jane Fonda,
claimed that Dederich’s actions violated the Synanon philosophy. ‘In fact’,
Peele comments, ‘his response was the natural consequence of the Synanon
credo that membership in the community is a lifetime proposition’ (8).

A wide range of secular and religious organisations now offer residential
rehab programmes on the therapeutic community model. Some are more
autocratic, some more democratic; some insist on abstinence from forbidden
substances, others take a more liberal approach. But they share a
commitment
to communal living, group and individual therapy, and shared domestic and
leisure activities. A survey by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2000
noted that there were more than 100 centres in the UK offering residential
rehab; the figure is now certainly higher (9).

Given the popularity of the therapeutic approach pioneered by Alcoholics
Anonymous (AA) in contemporary rehab programmes, it merits a brief
discussion. After the end of Prohibition in the USA in the 1930s, the AA
movement combined the evangelical fervour of the Temperance campaign with
the modern theory that alcoholism was a disease rather than a moral
failing.
The first two of the now-famous ’12 steps’ through which AA guides its
adherents to sobriety require that they admit ‘powerlessness’ over alcohol
and submit themselves to ‘a Power’ greater than themselves (six of the
steps
refer to the deity).

For AA, alcoholism is a life-long illness against which only total
abstinence can prevail, in an indefinite process of recovery. As Stanton
Peele, a veteran campaigner against the AA approach in the USA, observes,
the style of AA groups is derived from the Protestant revival meeting,
‘where the sinner seeks salvation through personal testimony, public
contrition, and submission to a higher power’ (echoes of this style are
apparent in the testimony of Mark Gale, quoted above) (10).

Through a combination of skilful self-promotion, endorsement by the medical
and psychiatric professions and encouragement from state authorities, AA
has
become a major influence in the USA – and in other Western countries. Its
approach has spread far beyond alcohol to other areas of addiction,
including sex and gambling, and, of course, through Narcotics Anonymous
(NA), to drugs.

A patient of mine was recently admitted – at the expense of the health
authority – to a residential rehab programme at a clinic that describes
itself as ‘one of the leading centres in Europe’. According to the clinic
letter, she sought ‘treatment for chemical dependency on cannabis, cocaine
and ecstasy’ (though, in pharmacological terms, none of these drugs induces
chemical dependency). The centre’s prospectus outlines its theory of
addiction: ‘We believe that addiction to alcohol and drugs (chemical
dependency) is a chronic, progressive, primary and incurable disease, not a
problem of morals or willpower. The disease, if left unchecked, will prove
terminal.’

The clinic provides five phases of treatment based on the AA model: ‘the
most important and difficult phase of the treatment is to break through the
patient’s denial.’ Yet, ‘once patients have accepted they have a disease
they are able to progress through the programme to begin their recovery’.
During treatment, my patient ‘began to accept powerlessness and
unmanageability and how this relates to the use of chemicals’. After eight
weeks she was discharged home with recommendations that she maintain ‘total
abstinence from alcohol and all mood-altering substances’, that she attend
regular meetings of AA and NA and that she receive ‘aftercare follow-up’ at
the clinic’s own ‘aftercare unit’. She relapsed shortly afterwards.

‘Treatment works’?

‘Many people who oppose the ‘war on drugs’ say that the ‘solution’ to the
‘problem’ is ‘treatment’. This is baloney. Addiction treatment is a scam.’
(11)

The phrase ‘treatment works’ is repeated like a mantra in the government’s
‘Updated Drug Strategy’. Everybody in the world of drug policy is desperate
to believe that it is true. Indeed it is supported by evidence from
research
that is either carried out directly by government agencies (such as the
National Treatment Outcomes Research Study) or commissioned by them. But
are
such studies reliable? Here the British authorities might learn from the
(vast) experience of the USA in this field.

Research on the efficacy of treatment programmes for problems of addiction
in the USA follows a now-familiar pattern. This begins when promoters of a
new scheme or programme claim dramatic successes (often accompanied by
media
and celebrity endorsements). Early studies, often influenced by the
enthusiasm of the promoters and the zeal of those they have cured, tend to
confirm impressive results. Later, when the publicity had died down and
independent researchers take a more dispassionate view of the outcomes of
treatment over a longer period, the extravagant claims cannot be sustained.

Writing 25 years ago, Griffith Edwards, one of the leading British
authorities on alcoholism, summed up the problem: ‘It is not only that the
research literature is poor in reports which suggest that any particular
treatment is advantageous; on the contrary, it is rich in reports which
demonstrate that a given treatment is no better than another.’ (12) This
does not mean that nobody benefits from treatment. It is simply that they
do
not seem to do so at any higher rate than without treatment. As Jeffrey
Schaler, a trenchant critic of these methods, puts it: ‘One treatment tends
to be just about as effective as any other treatment, which is just about
as
effective as no treatment at all.’ (13) Both Schaler and Peele provide
examples that substantiate these conclusions.

In his book The Therapeutic State, another American critic, James Nolan,
presents a detailed account of the drug courts in Dade County, Florida
(13).
These courts pioneered the diversion of drug abusers from the criminal
justice system into treatment programmes, developing a model that has been
taken up widely in the USA – and now features prominently in British drug
policy. Nolan shows that the claims for the success of these programmes
have
not been borne out by independent scrutiny. He reveals how the redefinition
of goals and a number of statistical scams have contributed to the
impression that ‘treatment works’.

A recent British account draws together the results of a number of studies
of long-term patterns of heroin use (14). These reveal that many users
spontaneously give up the drug of their own accord, without benefit of
detox, rehab or any other professional intervention. The authors reckon
that
‘at least five to 10 percent manage this every year’ and estimate that the
average length of a ‘serious heroin-using career is about 15 to 20 years’.

They emphasise that ‘this figure is independent of treatment’: ‘There is no
evidence to date that any form of treatment makes any difference to length
of heroin use.’ They conclude that ‘people give up when they are ready to
do
so. Events in their lives are much more important in making this decision
than anything that occurs in the clinic’.

The dangers of detox/rehab

‘Rehabilitation is shite; sometimes ah think ah’d rather be banged up.
Rehabilitation means the surrender ay the self’, wrote Irvine Welsh in
Trainspotting (15)

If the best that can be said of the detox/rehab approach is that it is
ineffective, the more serious charge against it is that it reinforces a
concept of addiction that is degrading to people with drug problems and
results in the further diminution of their autonomy.

Behind the manifold absurdities of ‘detox’ lies a conception of drugs as an
autonomous malign power over individuals and society. This tendency to make
drugs a fetish pervades the government’s ‘Updated Drug Strategy’, which
refers to the ‘damage caused by drugs’ to communities and to the need to
‘protect young people from drugs’.

But drugs are inanimate material; they have no will or power of their own.
As Schaler observes, ‘drugs don’t cause addiction’: people choose to use
them for a variety of reasons, often to help them cope with problems of
living (even though the costs may appear to exceed the benefits). Stanton
Peele and Archie Brodsky insist that ‘it is important to place addictive
habits in their proper context, as part of people’s lives, their
personalities, their relationships, their environments, their perspectives’
(16).

The preoccupation with the supposedly objective ‘toxic’ character of drugs,
and the notion of addiction as a disease, leave the subjectivity of the
drug
user out of the picture. Yet as Peele and Brodsky emphasise, any attempt to
influence addictive behaviour must take into account the wider realities of
the life of the individual in society. It is only as targets of the ‘war on
drugs’ that drug users come into focus: it is of course impossible to wage
war against pharmaceuticals, only against those who use them.

Though the AA’s 12-step approach has crossed the Atlantic, it is
regrettable
that its critics are not yet widely known in Britain: as a result, rehab
clinics using these techniques have become widely established with
virtually
no public controversy.

Peele and Brodksy summarise the flaws of the AA model as follows: ‘it is
‘religious and dogmatic’, demanding strict adherence to the group policy
and
not allowing personal choices or individual variations; it ‘undermines
individual confidence’ by insisting on members’ weaknesses and predicting
the worst outcomes for those who violate group policies; it reinforces the
‘addict identity’ and discourages people from emerging out of it; it
focuses
on the addiction and the group itself, ignoring the quality of members’
lives outside the group. (17)

The authors do not deny that AA groups have proven effective for some
people. But the basic premise of AA – that the individual is powerless and
should seek to replace the control of one external force (drugs) with
another (God, or, in the interim, the group) – can only intensify the loss
of autonomy that leads to drug abuse in the first place.

No doubt some rehab programmes reject the AA model. But by their very
nature, residential schemes isolate the drug user from the context in which
the problem has arisen. The intensity and intimacy of relations established
among members of the therapeutic group – and between clients and
therapists,
is likely to reinforce the client’s isolation from society. It is not
surprising that residents quickly become drug-free in their communal home –
or that they quickly relapse on leaving it. Though this is clearly why
there
is such an emphasis on ‘aftercare’ and ‘follow-up’, it also indicates the
client’s continuing dependency on the therapeutic relationship forged in
rehab.

The trend for drug users to be mandated to attend detox/rehab programmes,
by
the police, the courts, occupational health services, reflects the
authoritarian dynamic behind the therapeutic face of official drug policy.
The therapeutic approach is not an alternative to the criminal justice
approach to drug abuse, but proceeds in tandem with it. And, whereas a
prison sentence comes to an end, therapy goes on for ever.

But surely it is better to be dependent on therapy than to be hooked on
heroin? Perhaps, but better still to live an independent life, free of both
drugs and therapists.

Dr Michael Fitzpatrick is the author of The Tyranny of Health: Doctors and
the Regulation of Lifestyle, Routledge, 2000 (buy this book from Amazon
(UK)
or Amazon (USA)), and a contributor to Alternative Medicine: Should We
Swallow It? Hodder & Stoughton, 2002 (buy this book from Amazon (UK).

Read on:

spiked-issue: Drink and drugs

(1) Guardian, 11 December

(2) ‘Black Widow’ killed two with methadone, Guardian, 18 December 2002

(3) Rocky road, Guardian, 23 October 2002

(4) Royal College of Psychiatrists, Drugs: Dilemmas and Choices, Gaskell,
2000, p176

(5) Jeffrey A Schaler, Addiction is a Choice, Open Court, 2000, p40

(6) Tom Carnath and Ian Smith, Heroin Century, Routledge, 2002, p 159

(7) Stanton Peele, The Meaning of Addiction: an unconventional view, Jossey
Bass, 1985, p144

(8) Stanton Peele, The Meaning of Addiction: an unconventional view, Jossey
Bass, 1985

(9) Royal College of Psychiatrists, Drugs: Dilemmas and Choices, Gaskell,
2000, p162

(10) Stanton Peele, The Meaning of Addiction: an unconventional view,
Jossey
Bass, 1985, p31

(11) Jeffrey A Schaler, Addiction is a Choice, Open Court, 2000, p 141

(12) Quoted by Jeffrey A Schaler, Addiction is a Choice, Open Court, 2000,
p44

(13) James Nolan, The Therapeutic State: justifying government at century’s
end, New York University Press, 1998

(14) Tom Carnath and Ian Smith, Heroin Century, Routledge, 2002, p171

(15) Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting, Minerva 1993 , 1993, p181

(16) T Stanton Peele and Archie Brodsky, The Truth About Addiction and
Recovery, Fireside, 1992; p42

(17) Stanton Peele and Archie Brodsky, The Truth About Addiction and
Recovery, Fireside, 1992, p 314

Associated links:

Reprinted from : http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000006DB92.htm

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From: Brett Calabrese <bcalabrese@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Stop my ibogaine mail/2nd request!
Date: December 28, 2002 at 8:50:19 AM EST
To: ibogaine@mindvox.com
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com

GM,

Try sending a blank email to
ibogaine-unsubscribe@mindvox.com

Brett
— GM40JM98@aol.com wrote:

__________________________________________________
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From: “Alison Senepart” <aa.senepart@xtra.co.nz>
Subject: Re: [ibogaine] Fw: ReconsiDer Tidbit: Treatment Works… or does it?
Date: December 28, 2002 at 6:09:50 AM EST
To: <ibogaine@mindvox.com>
Reply-To: ibogaine@mindvox.com