This psychoactive plant could save lives—and everyone wants to cash in

Iboga plants smuggled out of Gabon provide most of the world’s ibogaine, a drug that can help heal trauma and addiction. As the plant enters fair trade, officials hope regulation ensures equity and sustainability.

People in Gabon have used the psychoactive plant iboga for thousands of years—to evoke for ancestors and spirits, see themselves in past lives, and tap into their subconscious for personal growth and revelation.
Photograph by Julien Coquentin, Hans Lucas/Redux

Aloïse Amougha clearly recalls the night 30 years ago when a spirit visited him and changed his life. “You have to plant iboga,” it instructed. “And with that iboga, you have to heal the world.”

This vision came to Amougha while he was gripped in the mystical throes of a Bwiti initiation ceremony, a traditional ritual practiced by many of Gabon's roughly 50 ethnic communities. Bwiti initiates eat or drink Tabernanthe iboga—a shrub-like tree whose roots contain a powerful psychoactive compound called ibogaine. Named after the Tsogho word “to heal,” iboga grows in several Central African countries. But its strongest cultural ties are in Gabon, where an estimated 5 percent of the country’s 2.3 million citizens practice Bwiti, and more still

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