Colorado is a state that is ahead of the curve time and time again.
The Centennial State has long been a home base for pioneers in progressive movements. Throughout American history, Coloradans and the state of Colorado have demonstrated leadership in a wide variety of sectors including conservation and clean energy, education and workforce development, technological innovation, transportation, and others. Ideas that were born in Colorado have spread to other states; other states often follow its lead.
In recent years, Colorado has made headlines for its support and promotion of the use of plant medicine. Colorado emerged as a pioneer in the legalization of medical cannabis in 2000 and recreational cannabis in 2012. Even more recently, Colorado was one of several states that led the charge to allow access to other natural medicines. In 2022, Colorado voters approved the decriminalization of certain natural psychedelic substances for adults aged 21 and over.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that Colorado is again the home base of a movement to help people with plant-based medicine. Today, the movement is one that is working toward access to ibogaine in the United States.
What Is Ibogaine?
Ibogaine is a plant-based medicine created from the root bark of the iboga shrub (Tabernanthe iboga) native to central Africa. It has been used by followers of the Bwiti religion, a religion primarily practiced in Gabon, for ritual and spiritual use since at least the early 19th century. Through the ritual use of this substance, Bwiti adherents experience visions and insights that help to aid them in personal and spiritual growth.
In the 1980s, people outside of Africa discovered that iboga can also be used to help people who wish to overcome addiction. Through iboga experiences in a clinical setting and under a doctor’s supervision, some people find that they are able to discover the root causes of their addictions while deep in the psychotropic state initiated by the medicine drawn from this plant.
When an ibogaine experience is complete, many people report that they no longer have any cravings for the substances to which they were once dependent. This treatment is helpful for a wide variety of types of addiction. It seems to be especially effective for people struggling with opioid dependency in particular, but it has also shown success in the treatment of cocaine, methamphetamine, and alcohol dependencies. Ibogaine can also be helpful for people struggling with PTSD, anxiety, and depression as well.
Today, ibogaine therapy treatments for people with substance use disorders and mental health issues are available in several countries around the world including Mexico, Bahamas, Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa, New Zealand, and others, but it is not currently legal in the United States. People who wish to try ibogaine to help them break free from addiction must travel to one of these other countries to find a legal ibogaine provider.
Although some research on ibogaine’s applications for addiction treatment occurred in the 1990s in our nation, it did not advance further due to concerns about risks related to ibogaine’s possible effects on the heart. Since then, there has been little further ibogaine research conducted in the United States.
However, all that is about to change.
Change is Coming
On May 22 of this year, Texas passed the Texas Ibogaine Initiative. This initiative, which was supported by many doctors, researchers, veterans, citizens, and even politicians in the state, sought to renew and revitalize research on ibogaine in our country, and it has succeeded.
The Texas Ibogaine Initiative asked the state of Texas for the allocation of $50 million for ibogaine research. This amount will also be matched by a pharmaceutical developer, making the total funding for ibogaine research in Texas $100 million. Further, three philanthropic family foundations in Texas will also submit additional funding for research. Clinical trials – with the eventual goal of FDA approval – will take place in Texas to determine safe ways to use ibogaine for addiction treatment. This will be the first government-funded ibogaine research in the United States.
A few states away, and just before the Texas Ibogaine Initiative passed, a group of delegations from 15 different states met in Aspen, Colorado to help advance state-led ibogaine-funded research across the nation as a whole. These delegations came from Colorado, Arizona, Kentucky, Texas, Ohio, New York, Nevada, Michigan, Mississippi, Tennessee, New Mexico, West Virginia, Missouri, Indiana, and Washington to participate in the first Aspen Ibogaine Meeting (AIM); representatives from Canada, Mexico, and Gabon attended as well. The delegations included elected officials, public health leaders, state health department representatives, and legal and financial officers from opioid settlement fund allocations.
This initial Aspen Ibogaine Meeting occurred over three days. During this period, attendees discussed science, research, policy, and the successes to date of ibogaine in treating addiction and various mental health issues where its use is legal. Presentations about ibogaine’s therapeutic potential, dialogues about its many applications, and a screening of In Waves and War, a documentary about Navy SEALs who traveled to Mexico for ibogaine therapy, all further bolstered the support of the attendees.
In the end, the introductory Aspen Ibogaine Meeting resulted in the development of a proposed model for collaboration between the states to help encourage the expansion of state-funded ibogaine research. By working together, states will be more likely to successfully pass initiatives like the recently-passed Texas Ibogaine Initiative. Participants expressed hope that soon, ibogaine research will be underway nationwide, and that eventually, it will lead to widespread access to ibogaine for likely thousands of Americans who can benefit from it within our nation’s borders.
Clearly, Texas isn’t the only state in which residents and professionals are interested in the expansion of ibogaine research. The mere existence of the Aspen Ibogaine Meeting is demonstrative of the fact that there are people all over the United States who would like ibogaine to be accessible in the United States.
The second Aspen Ibogaine Meeting will be held in late October of this year. This second gathering will again bring together people from all over the nation and the world. The multistate coalition created at the first meeting in April will continue to fortify and grow.
Colorado Continues to Lead with Psychedelic Science 2025 Conference
The Aspen Ibogaine Meeting in April 2025 was, without a doubt, the largest organized meeting about ibogaine in the United States’ history. Now, just two months later, Colorado will also host the fifth largest psychedelic conference of any kind in the nation’s history in Denver from June 16th to 20th. This event, organized by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), will take place at the Colorado Convention Center. It will include hundreds of sessions on more than ten stages, plus 100,000 square feet of exhibitor space, dozens of workshops, and countless networking and social events for attendees.
Topics of presentations and discussion will include information about every type and aspect of psychedelia including therapy, science, policy, studies, community, black liberation, society, business, help for veterans, and more. Plant medicine will be a large focus as well; the conference will include information about “the world of ethnobotanical practices that use psychedelic plant medicines, including Indigenous, traditional, spiritual, and contemporary approaches.”
In that vein, Transcend Ibogaine’s Medical Director, Dr. Fernando Rivas, will speak on Tuesday, June 17th at The Slate – Hilton Assembly Room at 1250 Welton Street in Denver at 7:00 p.m.. The topic of his presentation, “Ibogaine Protocol and Innovations for Treatment for Opioid Dependence & Trauma,” will be of great interest to anyone interested in ibogaine. This event, hosted by the Scottsdale Research Institute, will also host the Palliative Care SIG Business Meeting from 5:00 – 6:30, and dinner wll be served during Dr. Rivas’ presentation. Music and mingling will follow from 9:00 – 11:00 as well. This event is not to be missed.
Plant Medicine Is the Future
The fact that the first-ever Aspen Ibogaine Meeting and the gigantic Psychedelic Science 2025 conference occurred within two months of each other in the state of Colorado in the United States inspires great hope and excitement around the future of psychedelic plant medicine in the United States. It was not long ago that psychedelics and plants as medicine were concepts that were entirely foreign or at the very least, completely avoided by the vast majority of medical professionals in our nation. All of that is changing rapidly and before our eyes and it seems clear that soon, not only will these medicines become more and more widely accepted, but that they will be legally accessible to the people who can benefit from them right here in the United States. It’s an amazing time. Hooray for Colorado taking the lead as a place where ideas, discussion, and policy can be discussed and grow.