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Ibogaine In Thailand

If you or someone you care about is struggling with drug addiction, we can help in an English speaking treatment centre in beautiful Thailand for a fraction of the cost in Western countries.

Ibogaine In Thailand

If you or someone you care about is struggling with drug addiction, we can help in an English speaking treatment centre in beautiful Thailand for a fraction of the cost in Western countries.

Please do not call us if you are looking for ibogaine treatment, we do not provide this.

This article is primarily written to bring awareness to the danger of Ibogaine use. If you are going to try ibogaine, make sure it is in a proper medical facility with a fully staffed emergency room available. To the best of our knowledge there is no medical facility administering ibogaine in Thailand.

Ibogaine in Thailand

First note we have zero faith in Ibogaine's' effectiveness as a "cure" for addiction. There seems to be some evidence that it works as an addiction interrupter by bonding with the opiate receptors in our brain. However so do other drugs and people are not feeling withdrawal symptoms right after using? The conspiracy theory goes that it is a miracle cure, but it is being suppressed by the pharmaceutical companies because they can't make any money from it. It's root bark, aspirin is also tree bark and they make billions off of that. If this worked as well as they claimed a pharmaceutical company would be mass producing it and selling it for a thousand dollars a tablet and making billions.

The attractiveness of ibogaine is that people want a one pill cure to everything, we have been conditioned to believe that there is one or will be in the near future. Unfortunately this is not the case at this point in time.

If you are going to do this, find a clinic that is a real clinic, preferably in a hospital with a full trauma team on stand by incase things go wrong. As in Brodie Noel Smiths case, if he had been properly monitored while undergoing this treatment and with the proper medical professionals on hand, he might still be with us today.

There are conflicting accounts of what happened to Brodie Smith; the owners of the ibogaine in Thailand clinic claim he hadn’t been administered Ibogaine in Thailand and Kara Spark, the fiancee, claiming they had. She also claims they were given valium just prior to Brodie Smith passing away. Valium (Diazepam) in Thailand is a controlled substance and legally only allowed to be give with a doctors prescription. It also seems that there is likely to be an investigation into Brodie Noel Smith death since the story has been reported in the newspapers and the Australian government is asking for one.

Below is the list of known Ibogaine related deaths as posted on Myeboga, Please take note, Myeboga is promoting the use of ibogaine so there may be a conflict of interest there on how things are reported.

1: Ibogaine Death

1990 – 44 year old woman during group therapy session.
“The autopsy report, which included information obtained from the patients family physician, and the psychiatrist who administered ibogaine, makes reference to the possibility that the patient might have taken other drugs. The autopsy report noted the presence of amphetamine in the enzyme immunocytochemical (EMIT) assay of a dialysate of the kidney tissue (urine was reported not to be obtainable). This finding, however, was regarded as artifactual and possibly attributable to a false positive EMIT result due to the presence of phenylethylamine.”

2: Ibogaine Death

1993 – 24 year old female Dutch addict (Nicola K.) being treated for heroin dependency.
Ibogaine: A Review, Kenneth R. Alper, Chapter 1:
The patient died 19 hours later of respiratory arrest. Some evidence suggested the possibility of surreptitious opioid use in this case, which was noted in the Dutch inquiry (178) and which is another source of uncertainty in this fatality. [n.b. Ibogaine has been shown to increase the effects and toxicity of opiates (Popick and Glick, 1996).
1. G. van Ingen, Pro Justitia No. 93221/I057, Dept. Justice, The Netherlands, Lab. Forensic Pathol., 1994.

3: Ibogaine Death

1994/April Female (Nancy), 3rd Treatment. The Ibogaine Story, Chapt. 18: Prior complaint of recurrent intestinal malaise and diarrhoea. “On April 21, though, she flew back down to Miami for a medical exam at the U. of Miami–part of the followup to her Panamanian re-treatment. No ill-effects of Ibogaine–but still no explanation of her diarrhoea and recurrent vomiting. She was released from the hospital. Much later that evening she was found dead at the apartment where she was staying, collapsed in her vomit. Estimated time of death, 9:40 PM.”

4: Ibogaine Death

2000/February – 40 year old heroin addict (JW).
www.ibogaine.co.uk/new.htm:
“The coroner, Dr Paul Knapman, found that JW died approximately 40 hours after ingesting 6g of a Tabernanthe iboga preparation, (T. iboga is the source of numerous active alkaloids including ibogaine), in an attempt to break a lengthy heroin addiction, having had no success with other detoxification strategies.”

5: Ibogaine Death

2002/July – Young woman in Germany for psychospiritual purposes.
www.ibogaine.co.uk/new.htm:
The death occurred about one and a half hours after taking the dose. “The woman, aged 35 years and weighing 63 kg, had used the drug previously on one occasion without problem.” There appears to be no information about whether she had taken advised medical tests.

6: Ibogaine Death005/Jan - subject in poor health died during a period of daily, low-dose treatment at the Ibogaine Association.

MAPS reports that a copy of the autopsy report from the San Diego County medical examiner, “found that this patient died of natural causes, unrelated to ibogaine administration, although ibogaine was found in this patient’s system at the time of autopsy. The patient suffered a sudden cardiac death due to acute myocardial infarct and acute coronary syndrome. Contributory causes to the death were fibromyalgia and chronic opiate pain medication dependency.”

7: Ibogaine Death

2005/April – 43 Year old heroin addict.
Private Correspondence to Ibogaine List from a Close Relative involved in treatment:
Died 3 days after an ibogaine detox in Las Vegas, Nevada. According to a relative on the Ibogaine List an autopsy stated that cause of death was due to vascular heart disease. Apparently this is something which would not show up on a standard EKG but could be detected using a stress test.

8: Ibogaine Death

2006 U.S. man dies at alternative detox clinic in Tijuana.
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS, By Anna Cearley and Penni Crabtree. February 2, 2006.
“TIJUANA – A 38-year-old Santa Barbara man died Tuesday while receiving treatment at an alternative detox clinic that primarily serves U.S. citizens struggling with drug addictions. The cause of death was pulmonary thrombosis, according to an autopsy report.”

9: Ibogaine Death

2006 French Scientists Investigate Fatality.
Journal of Analytical Toxicology, Vol. 30, Issue 7, pp.434-440. Pub. Sept. 2006, Received Mar. 2006.
“Distribution of Ibogaine; Noribogaine in a Man Following a Poisoning Involving Root Bark of the Tabernanthe iboga Shrub”.
“In the present paper, we report for the first time the tissue distribution of ibogaine and noribogaine, the main metabolite of ibogaine, in a 48-year-old Caucasian male, with a history of drug abuse, found dead at his home after a poisoning involving the ingestion of root bark from the shrub Tabernanthe iboga.”

10: Ibogaine Death

Mexico: 60 year old woman, October 28th 2009.
Woman with 15 years methadone use and a history of HEP B which had been managed with interferion treatments a year prior. She also had a thyroid condition and been refused treatment at a previous clinic in Mexico.

11: Ibogaine Death

Cameroon, 32 year old woman, Jan. 2nd 2010.
Woman (Massage Therapist) fell ill and died after consuming iboga, a plant root — a “holy wood” — after travelling to Cameroon to take part in a a spiritual ritual involving a shaman, or traditional healer. It is understood that on a previous occasion she had a mild reaction to iboga while in Wales and had travelled to Cameroon to take part in this initiation ceremony in which the plant was eaten.

We have spoken to some experts in the field of addiction. People with medical degrees, specialised in addiction and asked them about Ibogaine in Thailand, or anywhere else for that matter and unanimously they all say they same thing, there is no evidence that it works and any studies that have been done were inconclusive and did not justify the risk associated with the drug. Some people will still believe however that some shaman or medicine man knows more then a fully trained addiction psychiatrist who has spent his entire career studying addiction.
Look at the people who are charging you $5,000 for a $19 dollar a night hotel room and $20 worth of bark root! Then look at the “evil establishment” with learned professionals that say taking ibogaine is a bad idea, needs more research and is dangerous.

Update December 28, 2014
I received and email this morning from a lady in Australia about my story and I think it is appropriate to post it here along with my reply. I have not edited her message in any way with the exception of removing her name and other identifying information.

From: Kate XXXXXXXXXX Email:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Phone Number: XXXXXXXXXXX Country:Australia Subject: death in thailand. Message Body: You may want to do more research and check your facts little better. I have been in contact with the guys at ko phangan to explore the treatment they offer. The girlfriend is lying. That man died in his hotel room. I asked if I could do the treatment at a different location and they said under no circumstances do they do treatments away from the accommodations they provide. If you did your research in ibogaine itself you would find a lot of information to suggest that it help a lot of people, in quite profound ways at that. They deaths that have been related to drug are usually for other reasons, ie the person trying it already has severely compromised health. They guys in Ko Phangan have great integrity and professionalism. This misinformation is spoiling an opportunity for many people to heal deep seated issues with addiction. They fact that you don't agree with it does not invalidate it. I think if you did you research a little better you might find it hard to dismiss this treatment. You may not support but that does not justify posting lies and misinformation on your website. That mans death was not ibogaine related. The girlfriend is lying!!!

The reason for posting this is I though a while about my reply before getting back to her and I think I did a pretty good job and other people considering going for Ibogaine treatment may benefit from it.

I did allot more research then you might think and know a fair bit more about the drug and it's history then you see in the post. I have also spoken with two different addiction psychiatrist about it. As for the hotel room the young man died in, according to the police report he passed away at the Utopia Bungalows. That happens to be the same hotel that was featured in the Coconuts interview with these guys where they were administering the drug.  I don't really care where they are administering it, if it's not in a hospital then it shouldn't be done. Is Ms. Spark lying or not?  I have been following the news reports on the story and am waiting to see the toxicology report from the Australian autopsy on the young mans body, that should be fairly conclusive. On your point about the deaths related to ibogaine being attributed to people having severely compromised health prior to doing the drug. All that tells me is that people should be having more comprehensive medical examinations prior to the drug being administered, as well as being better monitored by people with the skills and equipment to save their life if something goes wrong. I don't want to pick a fight with anyone but my point stands; If your going to try this, please do yourself a favour and find a place that has proper medical facilities and doctors treating you. Not a Thai island where there are no fully equipped hospitals and your doing the stuff in a hotel room. I wish you all the best and I hope you find what you are looking for, just remember, be safe while looking.