Iboga Nights
In the mid 80s, David Graham Scott started experimenting with film and with drugs. His experiments led him to become an addict with an aimless hollow existence. He was drawn to the lives of drug addicts and began to view it as a dark cult.
Then he heard about a radical method that was used by members of certain African tribes in some of their religious rituals. In 2003, this man chose this rather bizarre method to end his long-term addiction to opiates. It was through the use of a psychedelic plant root called iboga.
David Graham Scott describes the detox was 36 hours of soul-searching hell in which he journeyed back into primitive states and saw himself from a different vantage point. Some of what he saw was terrifying and some of it was very enlightening. But when it was finally over, he felt refreshed and renewed. The psychedelic therapy seemed to work wonders for him.
David then went on to produce a documentary film called ‘Detox or Die’ that unwittingly turned him into a spokesperson for ibogaine the pharmaceutical name given to the plant. Shortly thereafter he received a flood of emails and Facebook inbox messages where real people were thanking him for inspiring them to finally take the first step towards overcoming their addiction.
Then a growing movement in the west began promoting iboga as a quick-fix route to end addictions, particularly to opiates. The substance was being described as an ‘addiction interrupter’ that offers a quick and easy opiate withdrawal. It was said that it could accomplish in 24 hours what conventional treatments take up to 90 days to do. One medical doctor called ibogaine the ‘most important discovery in the history of addiction medicine’.
David Graham Scott wanted to determine whether ibogaine was really that good or if it was only a very strong placebo. He felt that he owed it to himself to find the answer to that question because there were many desperate addicts contacting him to find out more about this treatment and its true potential.
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