French explorers in turn learned of it from the Bwiti tribe and brought ibogaine back to Europe in 1899–1900, where it was subsequently marketed in France as a stimulant under the trade name Lambarène until the 1960s.

[2] Although ibogaine's anti-addictive properties were first widely promoted in 1962 by Howard Lotsof, its Western medical use predates that by at least a century.

During an eighteen-year timeline, a total of 19 fatalities temporally associated with the ingestion of ibogaine were reported, from which six subjects died of acute heart failure or cardiopulmonary arrest.

[12] A 2022 review indicated that severe adverse effects, including deaths, have impeded progress toward clinical adoption of ibogaine for use in opioid abstinence.

[13][14] Immediate adverse effects of ibogaine ingestion may include nausea, tremors leading to ataxia, headaches, and mental confusion.

[15] In long-term use, manic episodes may last for several days, possibly including insomnia, irritability, emotional instability, delusions, aggressive behavior, and thoughts of suicide.

[15][17] Death may occur with the use of ibogaine,[17] especially if consumed with opioids or in people with existing morbidities, such as cardiovascular disease or neurological disorders.

[19] In limited human research, neuropathological examination revealed no evidence of neuronal degenerative changes in a woman who had received four separate doses of ibogaine ranging between 10 and 30 mg⁄ kg over a 15-month interval.

[26] It is possible that the action of ibogaine at the kappa opioid receptor may indeed contribute significantly to the psychoactive effects attributed to ibogaine ingestion; Salvia divinorum, another plant recognized for its strong hallucinogenic properties, contains the chemical salvinorin A, which is a highly selective kappa opioid agonist.

[36][37] A synthetic derivative of ibogaine, 18-methoxycoronaridine (18-MC), is a selective α3β4 antagonist that was developed collaboratively by the neurologist Stanley D. Glick (Albany) and the chemist Martin E. Kuehne (Vermont).

[38] This discovery was stimulated by earlier studies on other naturally occurring analogues of ibogaine, such as coronaridine and voacangine, that showed these compounds to have anti-addictive properties.

[39][40] More recently, non- and less-hallucinogenic analogs, tabernanthalog and ibogainalog, were engineered by scientists attempting to produce non-cardiotoxic ibogaine derivatives by removing the lipophilic isoquinuclidine ring.

[47] From the 1930s to 1960s, ibogaine was sold in France in the form of Lambarène, an extract of the Tabernanthe manii plant, and promoted as a mental and physical stimulant.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also assigned it to a Schedule I classification, and the International Olympic Committee banned it as a potential doping agent.

[49] Its anti-addictive properties were discovered accidentally by Howard Lotsof in 1962, at the age of 19, when he and five friends—all heroin addicts—noted subjective reduction of their craving and withdrawal symptoms while taking it.

He contracted with a Belgian company to produce ibogaine in tablet form for clinical trials in the Netherlands, and was awarded a United States patent for the product in 1985.

The first objective, placebo-controlled evidence of ibogaine's ability to attenuate opioid withdrawal in rats was published by Dzoljic et al. in 1988.

In 1992, Eric Taub brought ibogaine to an offshore location close to the United States, where he began providing treatments and popularizing its use.

The entire stock was purchased by Carl Waltenburg, who distributed it under the name "Indra extract" and used it in 1982 to treat heroin addicts in the community of Christiania.

Various products are currently sold in a number of countries as "Indra extract", but it is unclear if any of them are derived from Waltenburg's original stock.

[57][58] The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) began funding clinical studies of ibogaine in the United States in the early 1990s, but terminated the project in 1995.

[59] Data demonstrating ibogaine's efficacy in attenuating opioid withdrawal in drug-dependent human subjects was published by Alper et al. in 1999.

[15] Ibogaine treatment clinics have emerged in Mexico, Bahamas, Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa, and New Zealand, all operating in what has been described as a "legal gray area".

[66] While clinical guidelines for ibogaine-assisted detoxification were released by the Global Ibogaine Therapy Alliance in 2015,[67][68] addiction specialists warn that the treatment of drug dependence with ibogaine in non-medical settings, without expert supervision and unaccompanied by appropriate psychosocial care, can be dangerous — and, in approximately one case in 300, potentially fatal.