#02 - Dr. Thomas Kingsley Brown: Ibogaine: Past and Present

Dr. Thomas Kingsley Brown, an anthropologist, chemist and a MAPS researcher who studies the potential for ibogaine-assisted therapy to treat drug addiction, among other things. He is the research program coordinator at the University of California San Diego McNair program, and an advisor to Beond.

What’s covered:

• How ibogaine stacks up against standard treatment models for addiction
• Dr. Brown’s research on the long-term effects of ibogaine treatment: does it last?
• the recent history of ibogaine
• Who is Howard Lotsof?
• How and why ibogaine was scheduled in the United States
• Psychedelic drug policy
• What Dr. Brown’s research shows about the importance of integration and support after treatment
• Can a psychedelic experience feel like a religious conversion?

Why it’s important:

If you’re interested in learning more about both the long-term effects of ibogaine, and ibogaine’s history, this episode is for you. Dr. Kingsley Brown also does an excellent job of explaining why ibogaine is where it’s at right now as far as policy and research. His explanations of his own work on ibogaine’s long-term effects speak to the potential that it has in treating addiction effectively.

Relevant links:

• Dr. Brown’s TEDx Venice Beach 2019 talk on YouTube: The Case for Ibogaine
• Dr. Brown’s presentation at the 2021 Nordic Reform Conference on YouTube: Treating Addiction with Ibogaine
• Dr. Brown’s 2003 research on religious conversions on Google Books: Mystical Experiences, American Culture, and Conversion to Christian Spiritualism
• Dr. Brown’s 2017 paper published with Dr. Kenneth Alper: Treatment of opioid use disorder with ibogaine: detoxification and drug use outcomes
• Dr. Brown’s 2019 paper published with Dr. Geoff Noller and Julie Denenberg: Ibogaine and Subjective Experience: Transformative States and Psychopharmacotherapy in the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder