Those deaths were one reason that advisers to the National Institute on Drug Abuse recommended in 1995 that NIDA not launch an extensive program of ibogaine research in humans. The brain damage in rats was another, and some dog studies suggested a risk of seizures and cardiac arrest. Some advisers also were unimpressed with the human evidence that ibogaine actually works. Vocci stressed that NIDA has not declared ibogaine shouldn't be tested in people, just that NIDA won't pursue that research. The institute remains open to paying for such studies by others if the proposals get favorable review from outside scientists, he said.
Scientists disagree on whether such applications have much chance of a favorable review.
Glick suspects not, saying ibogaine's reputation has been too tarnished. What's more, he notes, ibogaine emerged not from a research lab but from the experiences of addicts, not exactly the royal road to scientific acceptance. Lotsof hasn't been able to sell drug companies on ibogaine either. He says company officials have given him a variety of reasons for not touching it, such as legal liabilities in treating a population more prone to dying than usual, the stigma attached to drug abuse and lack of profit in a medicine taken only once or a few times. There's no sign that ibogaine itself is addicting, Lotsof said.