Talk:Ibogaine/Archive 1

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Archives Archive01 (June 2005-May 2006)

Contents 1 numbering of iboga alkaloids 2 censorship of ibogaine research? 3 Chronic Pain Management 4 references 5 Changes in article absent from history 6 Useful information in Mash abstract 7 More on Clinical Trials within United States 8 Introduction 9 Categories 10 Cardiac arrhythmia 11 Legal Status In Australia 12 Validity of the "media" section 12.1 Popular reference (good will hunting) 13 Odd statement regarding plant extract 14 Oxidation of indra extract 15 Cardiac arrhythmia 16 Is Ibogaine a monoamine oxidase inhibitor? 17 revert 18 Removed commercial spam links 19 Intenal links 20 Non-existing category 21 GA Review 22 Availability of Ibogaine HCl

numbering of iboga alkaloids

Ibogaine: Proceedings of the First International Conference, page xxiii, indicates there are "two systems for numbering the carbon and nitrogen atoms within the ...monoterpenoid indole alkaloids.....These are the Le Men and Taylor system and the Chemical Abstracts system. In the Le Men and Taylor system noribogaine is 10-hydroxyibogamine while in the Chemical Abstracts system noribogaine is 12-hydroxyibogamine... The editors recommend that the Le Men and Taylor system be used." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mbolo (talk • contribs)

Thanks for pointing this out! Le Men Taylor is sometimes used and has it's advantages but outside of a discussion in chemistry class and irrespective of what the editors suggest, if you do a search for 12-hydroxyibogamine vs 10-hydroxyibogamine, you will find 250 hits for the former, vs 9 hits for the latter. Utilizing pubmed, there is one abstract using the 10-hydroxyibogamine designation, vs many pages of results for 12-hydroxyibogamine.

For better or worse if you are submitting monographs the Chemical Abstracts system is preferred. maybe we should make a note of this within the text itself? If anyone wants to change it back to 10-, I'm certainly not going to fight about it, both are correct, but 12- is the one in common use. OrganicChemist 00:33, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

censorship of ibogaine research?

Whoever did the anon edits from germany, I've removed the last line about side effects, but I'm not sure it's speculation, Kroupa lists the side effects that appear. You refer to yourself anonymously in the article as a "coworker" of Jurg (or imply that you are), if this is the case I'm very curious why Ciba published nothing and dropped the research completely and why nobody in half a century ever published anything about this, related to ibogaine. Why the silence for so long?

I'm interested in why so much that pertains to ibogaine looks like it was swept under the carpet, because there are more refs about testing ibogaine on opiate addicts at the Federal Narcotic Hospital at Lexington, Kentucky, by Dr. Harris Isbell, in 1955! That pre-dates Howard Lotsof's patent for the same thing by 30 years! I'm not much on conspiracy theory, but there are so many weird inconsistencies with ibogaine research, that look more like sweeping everything under the carpet, when the results are upsetting. That's not science, that's politics in a police state! OrganicChemist 22:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Ciba as a corporation puiblished nothing but Jurg Schneider published three papers on ibogaine. One on cardiovascular effects, one on neuropharmacology and the third on potentiation of morhine analgesia (see PubMed search terms ibogaine Schneider J). And there is also the Ciba patent that is referenced referenced in the pain management section of this article. Ciba's interest in ibogaine was as an anti depressant according to Schneider and in the Merck Manual (9th Edition). It is not clear why they lost interest.

NIDA claims they have no files of Isbell's work. That seems pretty hard to believe as he was the medical director of the Addiction Research Center that became NIDA. The only reference was in a disclosure of Ciba to the Dora Weiner Foundation and that was Isbell's letter to Ciba requesting additional supplies of ibogaine. The letter is included in Beal's book on ibogaine and may be available via a google search. Isbell made no public disclosure of any results of his research other than autonomiic effects in the letter. Lotsof claimed interruption of chemical dependence disorders based on 1962 observations. There are some in the ibogaine movement who believe that Isbell went on to find that ibogaine had an effect on narcotic dependence though many in the scientific community doubt that. Once Lotsof was awarded his patents and became involved in the regulatory development of ibogaine, more than two hundred scientific articles followed. See PubMed search term ibogaine. Mbolo 04:09, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Chronic Pain Management

Schneider's research, artiicle and patent showed ibogaine potentiated morphine analgesia. Kroupa and Wells indicated ibogaine reduced opioid tolerance. Though the two findings are related, they are distinct and the Kroupa/Wells research does not confirm Schneider. Mbolo 04:37, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all the info and clarification, you're very knowledgeable about ibogaine. It is very hard to follow some of the development, because in addition to the usual bias and prejudice that the established scientific community has shown towards psychoactive substances in the last 30 years (does it have any medical value or not?), ibogaine appears to have all the bias shown towards psychedelics and then some, because of the direct effect it has on drug addiction and dependence.

Thanks for your time and effort in sharing your knowledge mbolo.

I have clarified the chronic pain management area a little in line with your observations, reading the patent and reading Kroupa & Wells paper, they are talking about related subjects, but they are distinct. I have also kept the side-effects listed in Kroupa/Wells paper out of the last sentence, but I'm not sure they should be, there is an entire section of their paper dedicated to the side effects that manifest and how to avoid them.

OrganicChemist

On the issue of the MAPS citation for Wells and Kroupa, MAPS refers to their publication as a Bulletin and not a journal (see their web page). That was specific on the part of MAPS as they felt they did not meet the qualifications of peer review that a journal may indicate. However, it is a minor point and I will leave the Bulletin/Journal call up to you. Thanks for your work on this article. On the side effects cited in the article they are valid and confirmed by other researchers. Referencing the side effects would probably be valuable to this article.

On the matter of bias I think a lot of the bias is not because ibogaine is a psychedelic (for the sake of disussion) but, because it is not a narcotic such as methadone, buprenorphine or LAAM, drugs that have been developed to one extent or another by NIDA. I have heard the matter referred to as the NIH syndrome (Not Invented Here) and that quote came from a NIDA insider. Mbolo 01:33, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

references

Meco, in your link for the Buchi et al. reference (see reference section) you provide, ^ G. Büchi, D.L. Coffen, Karoly Kocsis, P.E. Sonnet, and Frederick E. Ziegler (1966). "The Total Synthesis of Iboga Alkaloids" (pdf). J. Am. Chem. Soc. 88 (13): 3099-3109. Retrieved on 2006-06-23. The link goes to a page of html code but no abstract when clicked. Sorry for being confused. Mbolo 01:12, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Damaged code to pubmed citaton to Glick ref #6. Sorry for error. Please correct. Thanks. Mbolo!

Changes in article absent from history

I have noticed changes that have been made to this article, in the derivatives section for instance that are not indicated in the history of this article. Can anyone comment on this matter? Mbolo 18:05, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Please provide examples. __meco 18:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

04:01, 16 May 2006 Mbolo (Talk | contribs) (→Derivatives)

"A synthetic derivative of ibogaine, 18-methoxycoronaridine (18-MC) is a selective α3β4 antagonist that was developed by a collaboration between Dr. Stanley D. Glick's Department of Neuropharmacology and Neuroscience at Albany Medical College and Dr. Martin E. Kuehne at the University of Vermont. ^[1]"

The current existing section on Derivitatives however, reads:

"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).[15]"

There does not appear to be an reference in the “history” indicating the changes in text. "Department of Neuropharmacology and Neuroscience at Albany Medical College" is now referenced only as "Albany" and "University of Vermont" is referenced only as "Vermont." Had the changes been noted in the "history" I would have let it pass as, you know, no big deal. But, as they do not apepar to be referenced in the "history" it gives me concern. Posssibly, I missed it. If so please reference the changes made to the Derivatives section as noted in the “history.” Thanks. Mbolo 01:16, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Useful information in Mash abstract

I found this abstract on PubMed. Seems to have some information that could very well be quoted here. __meco 20:40, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Good find, I added the ref, including a full text pdf reprint. I also have a few questions. From what I've read it seems that Mash is the only scientist that has ever published data in a peer reviewed journal, regarding ibogaine's efficacy in treating human drug dependent subjects. I have looked through PubMed and there is a mountain of material about ibogaine in animal models, but as far as I can see, she's it in human beings, there is no other published research. Did I miss anything?

I also noticed that Mash has been cut out of the article, where she originally appeared in Research, here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ibogaine&diff=53438232&oldid=52554836

To my understanding Mash is the only scientist that was ever granted FDA approval to test ibogaine on human subjects within the united states, it would seem notable that the clinical trials at the University of Miami were restarted and mash received a quarter of a million dollars in funding from an anonymous doner in 2005. The statement that she received the funds is a direct quote by her, printed in the Village Voice and there are other articles which also mention it, I think they appear on MindVox but I'm unsure of their exact location, the voice article is here:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0508,hunter1,61311,6.html

I realise that media articles quoting Mash, are not the same thing as the University of Miami announcing that it has re-started clinical trials with ibogaine and doing a search I see no mention of this at all, so I'm not sure what happened with all of it, but it would seem notable that the only scientist in the united states, given FDA approval to test ibogaine with humans, has made this statement to reporters. OrganicChemist 17:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

More on Clinical Trials within United States

This is from the old edit, when Mash was deleted outof it: "While there have been claims that funding for clinical studies was received by Dr. Deborah Mash, a University of Miami researcher, no public statement supporting these claims have been made directly by Dr. Mash or the University and therefore the issue of funding or the clinical study cannot be confirmed."

This is incorrect, Mash did make a direct statement to the Village Voice. referenced in the link above. There is also at least one other direct statement made by Mash referencing this and the exact amount (250,000USD), somewhere online, I will search through MindVox and Ibogaine.org and see if I can dig it up. Although it is true that the University of Miami has made no such statement that I can discover. I haven't put any of this back into the article, but there seems to be more conflicting info. What a surprise! ;-) OrganicChemist 18:59, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Mash said that to Brian Vastag in Science Magazine. http://ibogaine.mindvox.com/Media/Science.html TrancedOut 22:23, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The lay press leaves a lot to be desired particularly when reporting on ibogaine. In the April (2006) issue of Ocean Drive magazine (page 191/192) we read: "Based on research from St. Kitts, the FDA has approved human trials here in the United States. Mash must now decide if she wants to continue studying ibogaine or simply focus on noribogaine. And, of course she'll need money. Some initial funds have come in from donors who wish to remain anonymous. As Mash will tell you, it's a start, But, there have been many starts in ibogaine's circuitous history, and progress never seems to materialize." I'm quoting the article. The article does not provide quotation marks for Mash for this text. As for accuracy, the FDA approved studies with ibogaine in 1993, two or three years before St. Kitts came into existence. Mbolo 02:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Introduction

Meco edited the introductory paragraph to describe ibogaine as a "strong" hallucinogen. I wonder if long-acting might not be a better description. What are your thoughts, Meco? Mbolo 04:43, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Or even exceptionally long-acting. «Strong» is pretty non-descript, so another adjective could very well replace it. __meco 14:20, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to change the language to long-acting. Let's say DMT is a short acting hallucinogen; LSD, mescalin and psilocybin are intermediate acting and ibogaine is long-acting. If there were a longer acting hallucinogen than ibogaine, then that might be an exceptionally long-acting drug. Mbolo 01:52, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Categories

Addiction as a category was removed for being too broad and replaced with drug rehabilitation. The two are distinct and should both be included. Addiction is a state that may be treated via a process, drug rehabilitation. Mbolo 16:45, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Cardiac arrhythmia

I have an issue with the following statement: "Arrhythmias have been observed in EKGs to appear at the point of conversion from ibogaine to noribogaine". What is the actual meaning of "at the point of conversion from ibogaine to noribogaine?" To my understanding, this conversion is an equilibrium that begins as soon as ibogaine is ingested. I'm not aware of any investigation that pinpointed whether arrythmias were reliably detected at certain plasma levels of ibogaine. Changing it to read "following ingestion of ibogaine" in the absence of better info. The Crow 20:35, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Good catch. Bradycardia is observed following the administration of ibogaine. What was meant by the point of conversion from ibogaine to noribogaine was the point when noribogaine plasma levels were equal to or exceeded in some cases the plasma levels of ibogaine, between one and two hours after ingestion of ibogaine, at which time a prolonged Q-T interval was observed in a minority of patients, possibly three percent of those treated. Information on the Q-T interval prolongation was provided in a presentation by Dr. Jefrey Kamlet at the 5th National Harm Reduction Conference in New Orleans and in a communication to the Mindvox ibogaine list by Dr. Alberto Sola. Doctors Sola and Kamlet are the most authoritative medical doctors in ibogaine therapy. I believe Kamlet is a Board certified cardiologist and President of the Florida Society of Addiction Medicine. Kamlet was the medical doctor treating patients at the St. Kitts ibogaine treatment facility. Sola is Board certified in emergency medicine and cofounder of the ibogaine therapy facility in Cancun. I think you can google a report on Kamlet's presentation. Mbolo 23:48, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Just FYI, after doing a little research on this, Kamlet does not appear to be a cardiologist. He is a board-certified internist often credited as a "board-certified addictionologist", which is odd because ABPSGA does not offer a certification for "addictionology". I am not able to find anything specific on Sola's credentials other than he seems to be the director of AmeriMed, a chain of medical clinics in Mexico, and he completed advanced cardiac life support (which is not a board examination or medical specialty). I've looked for the report at the 5th harm reduction conf but it doesn't appear to be available online anymore... just variations on different websites. From what I can gather, the only actual arrhythmia observed was ventricular ectopy. As to the credentials or the source... well, still not really sure about the credibility there. The Crow 16:39, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Legal Status In Australia

Does anyone know this?

Validity of the "media" section

As I peruse the media section, I see that it consists of:

1. A reference to an obscure X-files episode in which ibogaine is represented entirely inaccurately
2. A reference to an obscure CSA episode in which ibogaine is represented entirely inaccurately
3. A reference to an obscure Hunter S. Thompson quote which appears to be an utter fabrication on Thompson's part
4. An NPR radio segment, which for the sake of argument I'll assume was more or less accurate.

Given that the first three are essentially bullshit fictions that entirely misrepresent the nature of ibogaine, I question what value they have in this article. I think they should be deleted. As for the NPR segment, if we could locate a transcipt and link to it under "External links", that would be good. I'll give it a couple of days for a response, if there's no response then I'm going to go ahead and do the improvement. The Crow 21:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it's useful to include the NPR mention, because it's main stream media the other mentions are really just pop culture mentions, which aren't really that useful. LilDice 00:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't find a transcript for the NPR segmant (the segment is the reason I'm actually here, was interested in learning more after hearing it). For argument's sake, you can actually listen to it right here - http://audio.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/321.mp3

Thank you for the link, I'll add it to the article. The Crow 01:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the media section or its purpose. As noted above, three segments are pop culture references, and the This American Life podcast is one of the least informative ibogaine press pieces I've ever listened to. Looking through ibogaine.org and ibogaine.co.uk the press pieces aren't that easy to find, in ibogaine.co.uk they mostly appear under the "writing" section http://www.ibogaine.co.uk/writing.htm, in ibogaine.org they are all over the site, "treatment" "opinion" "science" all contain haphazard entries. The Mindvox site has a well organized media section http://ibogaine.mindvox.com/Media/index.html but I still do not understand the relevance.

If pop culture references are desired, This American Life does not belong with the other entries, if an overview of press and media is desired, see for instance the Wikipedia entry for LSD then the current article fails to provide any sort of reasonable topical overview. OrganicChemist 17:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I have reinstated the section about mentions of ibogaine in the media. I see no reason that arbitrary disinformation should not be mentioned (as such) in the article. I have however reworked this section to make this point more obvious. __meco 11:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I need a better reason than that... specifically I need a reason that arbitrary disinformation should be included in the article. This is not a dumping ground for whatever Google coughs up, it needs to be contextual and informative regarding ibogaine. By definition, disinformation is not informative. How does this help someone understand ibogaine? The Crow 13:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I assume you do discern between propagating disinformation and informing about the propagation of disinformation? My edit has attempted to identify incorrect information about ibogaine being circulated by mainstram media and labeling it thusly. I can agree that this can be elaborated on further than I have done, however, I see no rationale for ignoring, and hence refraining from advising readers that this does in fact occur. __meco 15:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

But what you're documenting doesn't even rise to the level of notable disinformation, it's simply fictionalized entertainment. Again, "I don't see why not" is not a valid reason for inclusion, we need to be saying "Here's why it's important", and you haven't demonstrated any importance at all. Why are these one-off fictional crime dramas important? What have they influenced? Are there any notable misunderstandings of ibogaine as a result of these references? Look at some other pharm articles, generally you don't see stuff like this because generally it's incongruent and not notable.

Also, if you need a reason as to why arbitrary disinformation should not be included, please see WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information and WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a directory. The Crow 22:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I take note of the fact that you and I disagree on the relevance to this particular case of the Wikipedia guidelines you list. I would even assert that your finding them relevant here is an eccentric position not supported by Wikipedia practice. As for my rationale for finding it prudent to deal with the several mentionings that we both agree are misinformed it is quite simple: a lot of people will have this misleading reference as their primary source of knowledge about ibogaine, and in the interest of disseminating accurate information about any topic, one area of attention would naturally be to expose those that misinform. __meco 08:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

In a moment of boredom I happened to read the script of the CSI episode mentioned, and found that in fact it doesn't depict someone intoxicated on ibogaine killing a victim. Actually an underground ibogaine treatment provider was murdered by drug dealers for interfering with their trade by getting people off drugs (hence the double entendre "getting off" that intersects with the other plot arcs). You can read it here. [1]. They actually did a pretty good description of ibogaine, including the bwiti, the metabolism to noribogaine, the fact that it isn't a silver bullet, and someone who got so deeply into the spiritual aspect as to appear borderline flaky. Pretty accurate depiction in my opinion. Whoever wrote the other summary must have only watched half the episode. The Crow 12:40, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Popular reference (good will hunting)

I have removed this reference because it adds nothing to the article. An utterance of the word "ibogamine" without any context is not relevant to this article. The purpose of the "popular references" section is to show how information/disinformation on the subject is percolating out to the public at large. In the "Good Will Hunting" example, there is so little context that they may have simply plucked it out of a dictionary to fill a need in the screenplay for an exotic-sounding chemical. The Crow 15:01, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Again I opt to disagree with your judgment of what belongs in the media section. In addition to reasons already stated above, I will add that since Ibogaine is so very rarely mentioned in mainstream media, any mention in a high-volume setting, such as a blockbuster movie is warranted mention in this section. __meco 16:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with Meco. The fact that an iboga alakaloid, ibogamine, is referenced in a major film, regardless of how casual it use or intent, is indicative of the penetration of the iboga alkaloids, including ibogaine and/or ibogamine into the social consciousness. The fact that it was pulled into a script by a Hollywood screenwriter is significant. Just my opinion. Mbolo 15:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

These arguments just don't convince me that a Good Will Hunting reference belongs in this article. I don't agree that any mention, whatever the context, is worth including. As for the context of this particular mention, it has nothing to do with the pharmacology or action of this drug. To throw in every reference we can find really just makes it look like an advocacy viewpoint trying to make the public profile look larger by any means necessary. Believe me, I do sympathize with the advocacy point of view, but that is exactly why I don't want this article to be biased toward the advocacy POV. The facts speak for themselves. The Crow 16:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

If you look around at what is practiced all over Wikipedia, you will indeed notice that these types of mentions are comme il faut. Furthermore, you are projecting a straw man when you assert my or Mbolo's position as advocating "any mention, whatever the context". The context in this case has been pointed out as being the dialogue of a blockbuster movie. You may find this inadequate, however, there's no justification for contriving a more general assertion on my (our) part than the facts speak to. __meco 17:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Your appeal to what the facts speak to is a bit confusing, considering the last time we contended over something in the media section, you were arguing for inclusion of a CSI episode summary that later proved to be completely in error (which I have since corrected). I apologize if I've misconstrued your motives but perhaps you can see how this insisting on the inclusion of false information looks as if you're interested in lengthening the section regardless of factuality or relevance of the items. The Crow 18:10, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is fair to blame an editor for not knowing that something entered into the article by someone else is erroneous ("this insisting on the inclusion of false information"). My argument then, and now, is of course based on the assumption that facts are not misrepresented in the article. This is of course not to be confused with reporting how facts are misrepresented in other media, which appeared at the time of our previous discussion to be the case with that CSI episode. __meco 19:21, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi. A friend and I added the Good Will Hunting mention, and I posted the following on Hokkaido Crow's talk page:

"Hello again. I haven't reverted your edit this time, but I respectfully disagree with your assertion that it is irrelevant. The character Skylar is a chemistry student taking advanced organic chemistry at Harvard, and her assignment, to assign the proton spectrum of ibogaine, gives indication of ibogaine's complexity as an organic molecule, as well as the status accorded to it in an organic chemistry curriculum. With 26 hydrogens in a handful of different chemical environments, the proton spectrum is no trivial matter, and while I concede ibogaine is probably mentioned more as a plot device, the mention is nonetheless relevant in indicating to non-specialists how the molecule is viewed within organic chemistry classes. I hope you'll revert your deletion; I will check back here for a reply. Thank you."

I don't think ibogaine's mention in GWH was just a throw-away, and I have zero interest in any sort of "advocacy" - just completeness of the facts. I am not making any claims about it penetrating mass media or anything like that. However, the section is for references in popular media, and I would agree with Meco that mere mentions like that are indeed all over Wikipedia. Also, just to be clear: the information in the original mention was not false in any way (I wasn't around for the CSI stuff, but just wanted to make sure). I am baffled by why one person's decision to delete something is overruling three people's opinion that the mention should be included. I have respected the deletion by not reverting it again, and I am open to discussion, but if there is both precedence and some support for this, I believe the mention is warranted. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 140.247.156.62 (talk) 18:14, 4 April 2007 (UTC).

Good enough then. There seems to be some valid context for analytical chemistry in "Good Will Hunting", and no real harm in including it. I've split the media section into 2 parts... documentary/autobiographical, and incidental/popular. I do want to mention that I don't accept the argument that "it's happening elsewhere in Wikipedia" as justification for anything. Vandalism (as an unrelated example) is happening everywhere on Wikipedia, but that doesn't mean it's acceptable. Relevance, context, and balance are important, and material not meeting those tests should be challenged. The Crow 15:11, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Odd statement regarding plant extract

In the introduction there is the content that

The advantage of the Indra extract is that it more closely matches the true multi-alkaloid chemical profile of the iboga rootbark, which some believe offers a more authentic experience than the isolated refined salt.

This is not very compelling. The bit about some believe is a typical weasle wording bit. Usual pharmacologic thinking is that a pure compound is better characterized than a plant extract, but that a plant extract may have other pharmacologic actions than a purified component of an extract. If there is an editor here with special interest in ibogaine this bit could be expanded upon. S Holland, M.D. Kd4ttc 04:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand your complaint... essentially that's what the section says, in slightly different words. The point is that ibogaine is a single alkaloid, where the actual plant has something like 13 psychoactive alkaloids (although most of them are very minor compared to ibogaine). So the extract provides an experience that is more like ingesting the actual plant, but the single-alkaloid salt is easier to measure out consistent repeatable doses. How would you prefer to word that? The Crow 12:39, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The bit about "more authentic experience" is one issue. The part "true multi-alkaloid chemical profile" is also not good pharmacologic thinking. By that criterion we should be chewing bark to get our aspirin. There wasn't anything in the article that supported the notion that the psychotropic effect of the plant extract is different from ibogaine. Thus there is nothing that supports saying that there is an advantage. Is there even any study that characterizes the alkaloids of the bark versus the alkaloids found in commercial preparations of ibogaine? Lastly, describing a psychotropic drug preparation as allowing a more "authentic experience" sounds like the article is pushing a pro-psychdelic agenda, whereas I see the big issue as a possible treatment for addictions. I was thinking of pulling out words that implied advantages. For example: "The crystalline salt allows an easily controlled dosage of a known chemical entity, while the Indra extract has additional psychoactive compounds which may have additional pharmacologic effects." I really didn't want to edit in the article in this case. Ibogaine was just mentioned on a broadcast on National Public Radio (which brought me here). These topics are ripe for edit wars so I wanted to discuss in the talk section first. I appreciate the dialog. By the way, is Ibogaine (10-Methoxyibogamine HCl) synthesized or purified from extract? Steve 76.213.88.126 17:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

T. iboga rootbark contains about 13 different psychoactive alkaloids, the major one being ibogaine (10-methoxyibogamine HCl). You can read one of the original Ciba studies in this scanned pdf . It's logical that a mix of 13 different psychoactives will be somewhat different than a single isolated one, although I don't know that this difference has been formally studied. I have however read of a number of different freelance therapists who prefer the extract for this reason; they are concerned that these missing alkaloids may be a significant part of the effect. In more scientific environments, they use the isolated salt because it is more standardized. Compared to ibogaine, aspirin is quite simple and well-understood. I'll change up the wording a little to see if it can be made a bit more palatable. The Crow 01:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Oxidation of indra extract

Someone has added a statement to the effect that the indra extract is heavily oxidized... I would like to see a reference to this before including it. I do not believe that this is a free base extract, to my understanding it is a mixture of various alkaloid salts. I did some searching to find an answer but could not find anything conclusive, so until we have something, it doesn't need to be in the article. The Crow 11:48, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a further comment to the mention of the Indra extract in the ibogaine article, that the Indra product appears to no longer be available and the web page indra.dk no longer active. Mbolo 05:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Cardiac arrhythmia

I have removed information in this section for 2 reasons:

1. As far as I can tell, there has been no study demonstrating that ibogaine causes arrythmia. This is speculation.
2. None of the 8 known ibogaine fatalities have been attributed to cardiac arrhythmia.

I don't understand what has caused this arrhythmia scare but I haven't seen any hard facts behind it. The ibogaine community tends at time to be something of an echo chamber, I tend to think that a misreading of some information has been repeated and amplified until it is taken at face value. I'd really like to see sources on this. The Crow 04:16, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

There is a hypothesis published http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16698188&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum

I'm not sure if it's worth noting or not, it's only a hypothesis LilDice 15:14, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, with due respect to their credentials, these guys only have 14 articles on pubmed, most of them are not neuropharm related, most of them are not human related. So I'm not seeing notability vis-a-vis ibogaine here. But I'm open to discussion. The Crow 18:10, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I really don't know enough about the topic to say one way or another how notable someone making a hypothesis is, I'd rely on the eds here who know more about the entire topic. Was just putting it out there. LilDice 18:43, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

One more thing, I'm searching a few other indexes and found an article in Science (Ibogaine Therapy: A 'Vast, Uncontrolled Experiment') - "The plant extract can be neurotoxic at high doses and can slow the heart." and "It slows the heart and, at very high doses, can destroy neurons in the cerebellum. FDA and NIDA cited these toxicity risks repeatedly in the 1990s." So it looks like the FDA might have some research on slowing of the heart via high doses of Ibogaine. LilDice 18:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Do they cite any primary sources? I'm guessing probably not. Ibogaine has been shown not to be neurotoxic at therapeutic doses [2]. Note also that the FDA saying there is a risk of arrhythmia does not necessarily imply the FDA is speaking from any primary research on the subject. The Crow 20:51, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Nah unfortunately was just some sort of article in Science, and they don't cite anything. Anyway, I think there is evidence enough to say that some believe there may be heart dangers, not that there are definitively any. Coming from a NPOV I say that this viewpoint should probably be in the article as long as it's cited as hypothesis, and conjecture not fact. LilDice 21:43, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Is Ibogaine a monoamine oxidase inhibitor?

If Ibogaine is a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) it would be an important information to prevent hypertensive crisis and such. I found mentions about this in: http://www.ibogaine.desk.nl/naranjo.html

http://www.ibogaine.org/bwiti1.html

(Ahabvihrea 00:47, 23 February 2007 (UTC))

Both of those sources attribute that statement to Naranjo, but Naranjo himself was referencing this: Gershon S., Lang W.J., A psycho-pharmacological study of some indole alkaloids. Arc. Int. Phamacodyn. 85, 31-62, 1962. I can't find the text of that article online, so I don't know for certain if it really claims ibogaine is an MAOI. I haven't been able to find any other sources claiming that it is. That would be a good thing to know. The Crow 23:21, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I've been sent a [3] link to the original Gershon and Lang study. Unfortunately it is a scanned PDF, so no shortcuts, I'll have to read through it. The Crow 00:54, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I've read through the Gershon paper above. There is no mention of MAO at all in this study, except a passing acknowledgement that harmine has MAO properties. Flipping through my paperback copy of "The Healing Journey" to the footnote at Chapter 5 Page 1, I now see that Naranjo never actually says which Gershon paper he's referring to. So we're no closer than we were before, I'm afraid. The Crow 01:33, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

revert

I reverted the "spam link" edit. Sorry, that's one of the worst selective edits I've ever seen. You removed links to 3 of the largest non commercial ibogaine information sites that have all existed for at least half a decade and sell no products while all providing unique information which was used to write the wikipedia article in the first place and you left in a bunch of pop culture trivia and cbs?? Huh? OrganicChemist 00:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Removed commercial spam links

Removed for-profit commercial ibogaine links. The article is starting to fill up with commercial spam. I left Iboga Therapy House in there, since it is a non-profit, running a government approved study in Canada. OrganicChemist 08:12, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Intenal links

Can someone edit the internal article link for "Formulations" so that it opens at the beginning of the formulations section from the content list. Mbolo 03:00, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Non-existing category

Is there any particular reason for the classification into Category:Nicotinic acetylcholine receptor antagonists since there are not other entries in that category and it hasn't actually been created either? __meco 06:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

GA Review

First of all, let me say that it's great to see more interest in drug & pharmacology-related articles on wikipedia. This is one subject where the encyclopedia is seriously lacking, and could use significant improvement, IMHO.

While the bulk of the article seems to contain sufficient reliable sources per the GA criteria, it primarily fails to meet the criteria based on criterion #1 (prose & organization) & #3 (completeness). The individual sections don't seem to flow together too well, and seem to be haphazardly organized in a random order. Information should be better organized for the reader, focusing on more important sections first. For example, I wouldn't put 'formulations' first, and would focus more on the history and uses of the drug first, before getting into more 'technical' details. Other, more specific issues follow (the listing may or may not be 100% complete, but it should give a good starting point to improve the article):

• The lead section is far too short, and does not adequately summarize the article. An ideal lead section should be between 2-3 paragraphs, and introduce the reader to the contents of the article. It should contain engaging prose, designed to spark their interest and encourage them to read more. It may help to review WP:LEAD for information on improving the lead section.

• It seems like a lot of the material in the formulations section is really historical, and should probably be moved to the history section instead. Remember, we're writing an encyclopedia article, intended to be read by anyone who is interested, not just pharmacists. Specific information on the various formulations is more important for a pharmacist, and not the general public. But this section doesn't really appear to cover the various formulations used today so much as it really goes more into the historical use of the drug.

• Promote the 'usage' section, and consider renaming this to 'therapeutic uses'. The section could use a better introduction, and a reorganization of prose to better cover the actual uses from a more scientific standpoint.

• There's really no information on physical and chemical properties of the substance. There is a subsection called 'analogs', but this covers similar compounds, not ibogaine itself. More information on the chemistry & physical properties should be provided, in addition to the listing of properties in the infobox. The infobox, btw, also has several question marks (missing info). While it's still ok for a few of these to be missing and still be GA, a good attempt should be made to address this.

• The image of the chemical structures of analogs seems to be fairly low resolution. While it's probably acceptable for GA status, it couldn't hurt to get a higher resolution image, if possible.

• Consider breaking up the 'pharmacology' section into individual main sections, not subsections. This follows the guidelines for drug articles in accordance with wikipedia's medical manual of style.

• The side effects section contains three external links that are used as references. It would be preferable to convert these to inline citations (see WP:CITE), similar to the other reference citations. (minor issue)

• I'm not really getting the purpose of the 'research' section. While most other sections cite research studies, and therefore fall under the category of research, why are these studies so important that they get their own section? There's also no real citations in the section either, so the text could probably be eliminated. It's contents, if verified, might be paraphrased and put into a section covering adverse effects or side effects?

• The 'media references' section is really bordering on a 'trivia' section, and most of the information is just barely notable, if at all. Trivia sections are generally discouraged in articles, and mere mentions of the drug in various television episodes and movies is really not considered notable for inclusion in an encyclopedia. The only things in this section that really are notable are the info on the documentary film, which could be listed under external links, as well as possibly Daniel Pinchbeck's book, which could be listed under 'further reading'. The rest can go.

• While there doesn't seem to be too many external links at the end of the article, it couldn't hurt to review WP:EL for guidelines on how to prune the list a bit to keep out linkspam and personal references and experiences.

Hope this helps improve the article. I've already stated this before, but as a reminder, it would be a good idea to review WP:MEDMOS for tips on better organization of drug-related articles. Also, review WP:LEAD and WP:CITE. As an additional note, WikiProject Pharmacology now has a Collaboration of the Week, which might be of interest in getting more collaborative assistance in improving the article as well; though that process might take a little bit longer.

Cheers! Dr. Cash 18:43, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Excellent critique. Mbolo 03:19, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Availability of Ibogaine HCl

I am not sure what to do in response to the following edit:

"Due to high requests for this Schedule I medicine from patients finding source information listed on Wikipedia, Sigma has sadly discontinued production for any means, including scientific research."

I don't wish to remove information that is true, nor provide information that is false. The thing that set off my BS detector on this was the statement that the requests were coming from Wikipedia. We don't have a primary source for that assertion... even if we did, I'm not sure what the relevance would be. But the main problem with the above is that no verifiable primary source is given, which conflicts with WP:OR and WP:V. And likewise with the information that it preceded, which stated that Sigma-Aldrich was a legitimate source of ibogaine. That content also remained in the article for a while without sources, assumed to be true, but in light of recent conflicting rumor cannot remain. Lacking sources or verifiability for both, I've removed them both, which unfortunately leaves us without any content regarding the availability of ibogaine HCl. If anyone has anything more verifiable, please bring references. The Crow 10:05, 20 September 2007 (UTC)