Speaker 1: On this episode of Newsworld. On June fourteenth, Governor Greg
Speaker 1: Abbott of Texas approved legislation to spend fifty million dollars
Speaker 1: in state money researching Ibogain, a powerful psychedelic In signing
Speaker 1: the legislation, he put a spotlight on a drug that
Speaker 1: is still illegal but that has shown promise in treating
Speaker 1: opioid addiction, traumatic brain injury, and depression. The initiat is
Speaker 1: one of the largest government investments in psychedelic medicine to date.
Speaker 1: Interest in ibergain therapy has gained momentum in recent years,
Speaker 1: driven in large part by veterans who had to travel
Speaker 1: to other countries for treatment and studies showing the success
Speaker 1: of the treatment. I'm really pleased to welcome my guest,
Speaker 1: w Bryan Hubbard, executive director of Americans for Ibogain. He
Speaker 1: was a driving force behind the Texas initiative and his
Speaker 1: talking to officials in more than twenty four states about
Speaker 1: creating similar programs. Brian, Welcome and thank you for joining
Speaker 1: me on news World.
Speaker 2: It's an honor to be with you, mister speaker. Thank
Speaker 2: you for hosting the conversation.
Speaker 1: Well, you know you've been involved with looking for treatments
Speaker 1: for opioid addiction for some time. Could you sort of
Speaker 1: give us your background and how you got involved with
Speaker 1: us well.
Speaker 2: I was born and raised in the coal fields of Virginia,
Speaker 2: about fifty miles each way from where Kentucky, North Carolina,
Speaker 2: West Virginia, and Tennessee all come together. I'm the grandson
Speaker 2: of coal miners, and I had a very idealized version
Speaker 2: of American civics and history education. I went to undergrad
Speaker 2: at George Mason and went to law school, where I
Speaker 2: thought I was going to be equipped with all of
Speaker 2: the tools necessary to defend truth justice in the American way.
Speaker 2: By the end of that first semester in law school,
Speaker 2: all of those dewey ad dreams and ambitions had been
Speaker 2: crushed and destroyed before my very eyes. With an introduction
Speaker 2: to the reality of law. I had a legal career
Speaker 2: that spanned sixteen years, representing three of Kentucky's largest employers
Speaker 2: in their workers' compensation litigation across the state. This litigation
Speaker 2: occurred within a political patronage system that masqueraded as a
Speaker 2: legal system that was the worker's compensation system at home.
Speaker 2: These practice years coincided with the onset and explosion of
Speaker 2: the opioid epidemic out of central and southern Apalachia, out
Speaker 2: across the rest of the country, and within the context
Speaker 2: of my law practice, I saw this insidious convergence of
Speaker 2: personal injury trial lawyers and unscrupulous physicians who were family practitioners,
Speaker 2: pain management physicians, and aggressive surgeons who looked for any
Speaker 2: reason that they could to essentially cut on an individual
Speaker 2: or to prescribe an individual high power and narcotics combined
Speaker 2: with chotropic medications that in combination created immense physical dependency.
Speaker 2: As I watched people move through this system in the
Speaker 2: litigation process, they didn't come to the workers' comp system
Speaker 2: in Kentucky disabled by virtue of their physical problems. They
Speaker 2: certainly became disabled after they had gone through the round
Speaker 2: of treatment, usually directed by their lawyer, that resulted in
Speaker 2: what I would call pharmacological disability through the administration of
Speaker 2: high parered opioids and other psychotropic medications which should never
Speaker 2: have been applied to the individual circumstances. These practice years
Speaker 2: ended in twenty sixteen, at which point in time I
Speaker 2: was brought in to lead social security disability system for Kentucky.
Speaker 2: I held that job for just about three years in
Speaker 2: addition to the Chance support enforcement system, and then moved
Speaker 2: into the Attorney General's office after my boss, then Governor
Speaker 2: Matt Bethan, lost his bid for reelection in nineteen I
Speaker 2: went to work for then Attorney General Daniel Cameron, running
Speaker 2: the state's Office of Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Control and
Speaker 2: within that law enforcement agency, which had as its job
Speaker 2: the investigation and prosecution of all medical providers who defrauded
Speaker 2: the Medicaid system, as well as the abuse, neglect, and
Speaker 2: exploitation in Medicaid beneficiaries. I inherited a caseload that had
Speaker 2: a substantial number of physicians who provide medically assistant treatment
Speaker 2: for substanst dependency and in particular methadone and sebox oone,
Speaker 2: essentially scamming the Medicaid system while simultaneously creating broad based
Speaker 2: diversion of these medications, which are themselves opioids, in such
Speaker 2: a fashion as to create as much opioid dependency as
Speaker 2: responsible practitioners were trying to address with good faith and efficaciously. Qui,
Speaker 2: Kentucky negotiated almost one billion dollars in settlement agreements from
Speaker 2: opioid manufacturers and distributors. I was recruited to be the
Speaker 2: first chairman and executive director of the State Commission that
Speaker 2: would both disperse and oversee the administration of those dollars,
Speaker 2: and mister Speaker, being the history extraordinary that you are,
Speaker 2: Kentucky and Louisiana usually jockey for the distinct position of
Speaker 2: having one of the most corrupt polities in the country.
Speaker 2: Kentucky's state and local governance structures have, for as long
Speaker 2: as anyone can remember, being infiltrated by what I would
Speaker 2: describe as a very close circle of aristocratic interest that
Speaker 2: seem much more vested in the perpetuation of the state's
Speaker 2: problems than in solving them. So when I was asked
Speaker 2: to do the job, I said, you know, this is
Speaker 2: a very treacherous opportunity because the usual suspects are going
Speaker 2: to gather around this money and want to pick it clean.
Speaker 2: If I'm going to do the job, I want to
Speaker 2: do it in a way that is accountable, that is
Speaker 2: accessible to the average Kentucky and it assures transparency as
Speaker 2: to how every dollar is spent. We also have to
Speaker 2: make sure we maximize the impact of these dollars. Recognizing
Speaker 2: the immensity of the problem and the finite nature of
Speaker 2: this resource, So the first most pressing need, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: was to explore the possibility of setting aside a small
Speaker 2: percentage of the state's settlement funds to foster a therapeutic
Speaker 2: breakthrough for opioid dependency. The very best of our treatments
Speaker 2: have about a twenty five percent efficacy rate, and that's
Speaker 2: not nearly good enough to create the sort of generational
Speaker 2: change that we need in what is now the thirtieth
Speaker 2: year of a monstrous opioid epidemic. By virtue of having
Speaker 2: followed scientific research around the potential breakthrough therapeutic response of
Speaker 2: alcoholics to the psilocybin mushroom, I became independently curious about
Speaker 2: those things that had been traditionally associated with the pejoratively
Speaker 2: described psychedelic scene that originated in the late sixties counterculture,
Speaker 2: and whether there could be actual, legitimate medical applications of
Speaker 2: any of those therapeutics to opioid dependency. On July twenty nine,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, I heard the word I have begain
Speaker 2: for the very first time, and that touched off an intensive,
Speaker 2: second full time job off the books, conducting all the
Speaker 2: critical examination and due diligence research that I could to
Speaker 2: determine whether the development of IB again through the creation
Speaker 2: of a public private partnership under the Commission's auspices, could
Speaker 2: be Kentucky's Manhattan Project opportunity to lead itself and the
Speaker 2: rest of the country in a way that could revolutionize
Speaker 2: substance use and mental health treatment. I became convinced that
Speaker 2: I again represented that opportunity. Mai the thirty first, or
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, we announced that we were going to
Speaker 2: explore the possibility of committing forty two million dollars, or
Speaker 2: five percent of the state's total settlement dollars, to the
Speaker 2: creation of a public private partnership that would get ib
Speaker 2: again through the FDA as a breakthrough therapeutic for opioid dependency.
Speaker 2: When that happened, what was a reaction, Well, there were
Speaker 2: disparate reactions. One was the predictable response from the powers
Speaker 2: that be that stood the most to lose from the
Speaker 2: creation of a therapeutic that can deliver curative results in
Speaker 2: place of those that are admitted ministered on the basis
Speaker 2: of chronosity. We had immediate and vocal opposition from the
Speaker 2: University of Kentucky, an institution which claims to be an
Speaker 2: asprint Tier one public university research status, but nonetheless asserted
Speaker 2: that the therapeutic options we have are the ones that
Speaker 2: we should have. They're the best that there can ever be,
Speaker 2: and there was no need to even go down this
Speaker 2: audacious road. A shock and attitude from an institution that
Speaker 2: is supposed to help drive open minded progress. The other
Speaker 2: vocal upon it turned out to be current Kentucky Governor
Speaker 2: Andy Basher. And as I'm sure you have followed this
Speaker 2: guy as being talked about as a top tier candidate
Speaker 2: for president for the Democrat Party in twenty twenty eight,
Speaker 2: what your audience should know is that current Kentucky Governor
Speaker 2: Andy Basheer and his father, former Kentucky Governor Steve Basheer,
Speaker 2: worked at a law firm in Lexington, Kentucky, and were
Speaker 2: partners there called Stints and Harveson. Stints and Harveison Act.
Speaker 2: We represented Purdue Pharma in its litigation against the people
Speaker 2: of Kentucky while Steve and Andy Bisher were partners at
Speaker 2: that law firm. So, in addition to the University of Kentucky,
Speaker 2: Andy Basher came out moments after we completed our public
Speaker 2: announcement and gave his full throated opposition to our intention
Speaker 2: to go down this road. The heartening portion of this
Speaker 2: related to the grassroots response of the people of Kentucky
Speaker 2: to the possibility of the state leading the creation of
Speaker 2: a therapeutic breakthrough for a problem that families and communities
Speaker 2: in Kentucky had borne the ground zero brunt of for
Speaker 2: thirty years. Leading up to this announcement, I had taken
Speaker 2: the Commission across the state. We held twenty individual town
Speaker 2: halls from one end of the state to the other
Speaker 2: on Tuesday nights at six pm, and these things would
Speaker 2: go anywhere between eight forty five oh whip to ten
Speaker 2: o'clock at night immediately following the opening of society from
Speaker 2: the COVID lockdowns that were harshly imposed by Andy Bisheer.
Speaker 2: Each of these community meetings began with a fifteen minute
Speaker 2: technocratic presentation around what the Commission's role was and help
Speaker 2: it do its job, followed by solicitation of the community's
Speaker 2: feedback as to how we needed to prioritize their needs
Speaker 2: before we disperse this money and mister Speaker, what would
Speaker 2: follow our fifteen minute technocratic presentation was a collective outpourt
Speaker 2: of community catharsis and grief that illuminated a degree of
Speaker 2: devastation that had been wronged by this problem that was
Speaker 2: foreign even to me, someone who had come to the
Speaker 2: table educated about the monstrosities produced by the opioid epidemic.
Speaker 2: The sun total of our community responses were, we have
Speaker 2: no confidence in the ability of officialdom to address our
Speaker 2: despair in a way that is either competent or honest.
Speaker 2: And if you managed to do anything for our community
Speaker 2: that produces any constructive progress whatsoever, it will be a
Speaker 2: shock to us. So, recognizing that there was profound public
Speaker 2: cynicism and distrust of officialdom, there was great disappointment in
Speaker 2: terms of how the existing therapies had failed to yield
Speaker 2: progress that had been promised as they were deployed. We
Speaker 2: found a receptive audience within this deeply politically conservative and
Speaker 2: religiously fundamentalist state, among everyday Kentuckians, about the creation of
Speaker 2: a new therapy that could not just sustain someone in
Speaker 2: their suffering though prevent them from Diane, which is what
Speaker 2: I would describe as our current options, but could literally
Speaker 2: create a genuine emancipation medication that has the potential to
Speaker 2: fully physiologically restore the brains of opioid dependent individuals impaired
Speaker 2: by that long term use, and to do so in
Speaker 2: a way that comprehensibly addresses the whole human mind, body,
Speaker 2: and soul. And I am convinced that had we been
Speaker 2: allowed to have this as a public referendum California style
Speaker 2: rather than through a very mechanized process of government matriculation,
Speaker 2: that proposal would have won in Kentucky sixty to forty
Speaker 2: and by any measure that was landslide grassroots support. And
Speaker 2: that is something that I would stand on like a
Speaker 2: rock of Gibraltar in terms of the reality on the ground.
Speaker 1: Since you could not go to a referendum, how did
Speaker 1: the political system react to your idea of finding a permanent,
Speaker 1: long term cure.
Speaker 2: I would describe the interest as one of open minded reserve.
Speaker 2: The legislature, which is controlled by Republicans and has been
Speaker 2: for some time, did not make any move to interfere
Speaker 2: with the prerogative of the Commission to explore the deployment
Speaker 2: of recurses for this purpose. And again, the only vocal
Speaker 2: opposition that we drew was from the University of Kentucky,
Speaker 2: who had a representative on the Commission who protested throughout
Speaker 2: the process as well as Adie Basher, whose Health and
Speaker 2: Human Services secretary. A guy by the name of Eric
Speaker 2: Friedlander was on the commission and was also consistently opposed
Speaker 2: to every forward step that we made in this direction.
Speaker 1: To go back to the basics from it. You know
Speaker 1: so much more than I do. What exactly is eyebo game?
Speaker 2: I'm a game is a naturally occurring alkaloid that is
Speaker 2: found in three West African plants, The one that grows
Speaker 2: in most plentiful amounts the Congo africana. The mother plant
Speaker 2: is called the Ebogar route. It has been used by
Speaker 2: the Bowedi culture in West Africa for centuries as part
Speaker 2: of its cultural and spiritual traditions. In the mid sixties,
Speaker 2: a gentleman by the name of Howard Lotzov, who had
Speaker 2: been a long term heroin addict, came into contact without again,
Speaker 2: and he took it because he was just a substance
Speaker 2: use omnivore. After he went through the experience, he came
Speaker 2: out on the other side with zero desire to consume
Speaker 2: heroin and as consequentially, zero withdraw experience. This touched off
Speaker 2: fifty years of open labeled field study that's generated data
Speaker 2: that's decades wide in a mountain high that establishes that
Speaker 2: ibegate has profound addiction interruption properties that are unparalleled within
Speaker 2: our existent pharmacology.
Speaker 1: A year ago, in twenty twenty four, Nature Medicine published
Speaker 1: a study that showed remarkable results with military veterans with
Speaker 1: traumatic brain injuries, and I began, can you walk us
Speaker 1: through that? From her?
Speaker 2: Yes, sir? As American war fighters, in particular special operators
Speaker 2: were coming home with the traumas of war, psychological and physical.
Speaker 2: They matriculated through a veterans administration that had at its
Speaker 2: disposal all of the big pharma synthetic pharmacology that's known
Speaker 2: to everyone opioids, for paying SSRIs for mood disorders. As
Speaker 2: veterans matriculated through these processes and received these medications, none
Speaker 2: of them were nearly adequate enough to address their trauma,
Speaker 2: in particular the physiological trauma of traumatic brain injury. Many
Speaker 2: of these veterans, as they contemplated taking their own lives,
Speaker 2: heard about this qu exotic substance called ibagain that was
Speaker 2: being administered in Mexico, and a lot of veterans began,
Speaker 2: just through word of mouth to compare notes through scenarios
Speaker 2: whereby veterans who were ready to detect their lives had
Speaker 2: been sent for ibogain treatment and that on the other
Speaker 2: side of that treatment they came away with genuinely miraculous
Speaker 2: results in terms of the restoration of their sense of self,
Speaker 2: a restoration of their sense of the will to live,
Speaker 2: and a restoration of their mind that allowed them to
Speaker 2: function at a level that they had not been able
Speaker 2: to function with After they returned home. Not only were
Speaker 2: they restored, but they were freed from their need to
Speaker 2: utilize any of the pharmacology that had been given to
Speaker 2: them by the VHA as.
Speaker 1: I understand that Rick Perry, who's a very close friend
Speaker 1: of mine and a very dedicated patriot, actually ran into
Speaker 1: ib again through a Navy seal that he had met
Speaker 1: at Cornetto Island while on vacation with his wife, and
Speaker 1: somehow the ibegan story began to arrive in Texas, and
Speaker 1: now Texas, which is our second biggest seat, is actually
Speaker 1: in the process of passing bills that focus on the
Speaker 1: use of Iyebergang in helping veterans and others. That's really
Speaker 1: quite remarkable, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Oh, it is an unbelievable story that, with all due respect,
Speaker 2: I happened to believe illustrates the presence of the divine
Speaker 2: hand in the construction of the reality you've just described.
Speaker 2: Governor Perry came into independent and separate contact with ibagain
Speaker 2: through his friendship with Marcus Lttrell, and many of your
Speaker 2: audience members may recognize as the loan survivor whose story
Speaker 2: was told in a movie in which he was depicted
Speaker 2: by Mark Wahlberg. Governor Perry and I converged on the
Speaker 2: Kentucky project. I met him for the first time in
Speaker 2: June of twenty three. He supported the Kentucky effort as
Speaker 2: it was developed, recorded a message in support of it,
Speaker 2: and was a coose deign on a newsweek of ed Only.
Speaker 2: She was joined by Congressional Medal of Honor winner Dakota Meyer,
Speaker 2: Marcus and Morgan Littreel supporting the Kentucky Initiative. The Kentucky
Speaker 2: Initiative came to an end due to a change in
Speaker 2: the office of Attorney General. The new Attorney General, who
Speaker 2: was elected in November of twenty three, summoned me to
Speaker 2: a meeting in December and said, I want no part
Speaker 2: of this and I don't agree with anything you've done
Speaker 2: around it, and I want your resignation before I take office.
Speaker 2: So I was very much in despire over the lost
Speaker 2: opportunity for the state and was desperate to find fertile
Speaker 2: soul in which that project could be transplanted. And I
Speaker 2: have to thank God for the connection made to Governor Perry,
Speaker 2: because it was that connection that allowed the creation of
Speaker 2: circumstances by which Texas has now finished a job that
Speaker 2: was begun in Kentucky over two years ago.
Speaker 1: Joas, what exactly is the Texas program?
Speaker 2: So the Texas I began initiative is now the successful
Speaker 2: completion of a left legislative campaign by which the state
Speaker 2: legislature has put up fifty million dollars to fund a
Speaker 2: public private partnership whereby a consortium of one or more
Speaker 2: universities paired with one or more private hospital systems paired
Speaker 2: with a single drug developer will submit their proposals in
Speaker 2: response to a competitive application and review process to come
Speaker 2: into Texas to conduct FDA drug development trials with ib
Speaker 2: again as a breakthrough therapeutic for substance use disorder. Texas
Speaker 2: money will pay for the cost of FDA trials conducted
Speaker 2: in Texas by the drug developer, paired with drug Developer's
Speaker 2: own independent contribution of fifty million dollars through that consortium,
Speaker 2: it is the largest single public investment in psychedelic research
Speaker 2: and medical development in history, and in particular as it
Speaker 2: relates to eyeba gain, it represents a significant shift of
Speaker 2: public policy when it comes to the recognition of the
Speaker 2: need to develop restorative therapeutics that can have the potential,
Speaker 2: in this case, to revolutionize substance use mental health, as
Speaker 2: well as treatment of neurological conditions that impact the brain
Speaker 2: for which we have no good answers.
Speaker 1: As I understand it. The Veterans Administration Secretary Doug Collins
Speaker 1: has also indicated that they are open to exploring the
Speaker 1: impact of psychedelics on helping veterans.
Speaker 2: Secretary Collins has expressed his support for the delivery of
Speaker 2: medicines that can improve upon what we have. Those happen
Speaker 2: to be in some cases psychedelic, and it's wonderful to
Speaker 2: see leadership that's open minded and willing to pursue progress
Speaker 2: wherever it exists.
Speaker 1: Do you have any notion if ibergame began to be
Speaker 1: used broadly, what its cost structure would be like iming
Speaker 1: how hard is it news?
Speaker 2: The actual synthesis process necessary to produce IYE again is
Speaker 2: not particularly expensive. Being able to establish a domestic supply
Speaker 2: chain for the medication that's not going to be necessarily expensive.
Speaker 2: I BEGIN is a very serious medication that comes with
Speaker 2: a particular cardiac risk that can result in arrhythmia, which
Speaker 2: can result in the stoppage of the heart. It must
Speaker 2: be delivered within a clinically controlled medical set and complete
Speaker 2: with cardiac screening, cardiac monitor and the administration of medication
Speaker 2: that can correct in arrhythmia if it occurs. The number
Speaker 2: we have to beat, mister speaker is there's two numbers,
Speaker 2: and those numbers are one hundred and eight thousand dollars
Speaker 2: and one hundred and twenty days. When we have an
Speaker 2: individual who goes in for substance abuse treatment now and
Speaker 2: they happen to be on Medicaid, the first thirty days
Speaker 2: of impatient treatment is designed just to stabilize them enough
Speaker 2: to then go into a ninety day intensive outpatient protocol
Speaker 2: to ensure that they are compliant with their treatment plan,
Speaker 2: which involves either methadone or suboxone. At first thirty days
Speaker 2: of impatient treatment in twenty twenty two Kentucky Medicaid dollars
Speaker 2: is thirty six thousand dollars. The next ninety days of
Speaker 2: intensive outpatient treatment is seventy two thousand dollars. The average
Speaker 2: number of attempts a person will make to go through
Speaker 2: this system is five. So if we are able to
Speaker 2: deliver a ten day inpatient treatment of ibagain that essentially
Speaker 2: restores an individual's brain to the condition that it was
Speaker 2: in before they ever consumed the first opioid, and do
Speaker 2: so at a price point that is below a half
Speaker 2: a million dollars, then the opportunity to achieve immense actuarial
Speaker 2: savings over time is tremendous, and i begain is just
Speaker 2: a beginning, not an end. Many states cannot supply long
Speaker 2: term recovery services because of how much resource burden there
Speaker 2: is on that first one hundred and twenty days of
Speaker 2: treatment just to produce individual stabilization. With IYEB again, we
Speaker 2: have a chance to substantially improve acute treatment outcomes in
Speaker 2: a ways that save substantial amounts of money and can
Speaker 2: redeploy resources to create long term recovery infrastructure. It's vital
Speaker 2: to maintain long term independent recovery.
Speaker 1: So if somebody goes through the ibogain process, to what
Speaker 1: degree are they likely to be cleaned for the rest
Speaker 1: of their life? And to what degree is there a
Speaker 1: real danger of buck sliding?
Speaker 2: Ibergain produces the very best beginning for an individual's recovery
Speaker 2: journey that can be delivered by the medical universe. And
Speaker 2: by that I mean an opioid dependent individual their brain
Speaker 2: can't produce dopamine in serotonin. These are the chemicals that
Speaker 2: drive all of our most baseline human instincts. The drivet to eat,
Speaker 2: to drink, to fight, to fight, and procreate. Those are
Speaker 2: all driven by serotonin and dopamine. So when a person
Speaker 2: is deprived of their drug supply and they engage in
Speaker 2: what appears to be behavior that is criminally depraved, who
Speaker 2: are actually observing of the consequences of a profound neurochemical
Speaker 2: brain injury, that is, to brain starvation for dopamine and serotonin.
Speaker 2: A person has to be completely abstinate from all opioid
Speaker 2: consumption for at least eighteen months in order for the
Speaker 2: brain to begin to produce its own dopamine and serotonin.
Speaker 2: With IEB again, you take that eighteen months, and you
Speaker 2: reduce it to thirty six to forty eight hours. And
Speaker 2: by that I mean eighty percent of individuals who get
Speaker 2: a single treatment have their brains dopamine and serotonin levels
Speaker 2: restored to their pre opioid levels within thirty six to
Speaker 2: forty eight hours, thereby eliminating the entire withdraw experience and
Speaker 2: creating a genuine physiological restoration of the impaired brain. Now
Speaker 2: that is the beginning. Just like any other treatment, an
Speaker 2: individual whose life has been shattered by the consequences of addiction,
Speaker 2: who faces a host of legal, financial, logistical, and social problems,
Speaker 2: must receive long term recovery support to help solve each
Speaker 2: of those problems. Because if we take an individual and
Speaker 2: just throw them back into the mailstream of a catastrophe,
Speaker 2: the chances of relapse with any treatment are substantially high.
Speaker 2: I would add one other component, and that is the
Speaker 2: spiritual aspect of I Be Again experience. Many people who
Speaker 2: receive this medication, even people who are not believers in
Speaker 2: a higher power, come away with an absolute, concrete affirmation
Speaker 2: that they are a spiritual being and that there is
Speaker 2: a higher power in this universe who possesses almighty and
Speaker 2: unconditional love for them. That is, for me, I begain's
Speaker 2: most potent attribute. And when you offer that foundation of
Speaker 2: spiritual significance within the context of medical treatment, you significantly
Speaker 2: enhance the chances for long term success, especially if paired
Speaker 2: with the treatment system that will be supportive of that
Speaker 2: individual as they make that reconstruction journey.
Speaker 1: I'm very curious what the interactions are in your brain
Speaker 1: that enable you to shrink what could be an eighteen
Speaker 1: month process into a forty eight or seventy two hour process.
Speaker 1: What is actually chemically so different from this experience.
Speaker 2: You are asking, mister speaker a question that pertains to
Speaker 2: what I have been educated to know as the mechanism
Speaker 2: of action. What is it that it does with the
Speaker 2: in the brain to generate these results? And the answer
Speaker 2: to that is no one knows. One of the reasons
Speaker 2: the Stanford study was undertaken was to determine whether there
Speaker 2: were objectively identifiable changes within the brain to explain these
Speaker 2: dramatic subjective reports of total remission of what had been
Speaker 2: years long suicidality, treatment resistant depression, and anxiety, as well
Speaker 2: as functional impairments related to dramatic brain injury. And this
Speaker 2: is really where the revolutionary nature of this becomes concrete.
Speaker 2: MRI's were taken of thirty veterans before and after a
Speaker 2: single eyebigain treatment. Each veteran had dramatic brain injury, which
Speaker 2: was radiographically expressed as dead spots within functional MRI images
Speaker 2: black dots throughout the brain. Post i begain treatment, MRIs
Speaker 2: demonstrated for realities. One, there was to come complete elimination
Speaker 2: of those black dots through the brains of these veterans.
Speaker 2: Number two, the white matter that covers the surface of
Speaker 2: our brains, the highway across which all of our thoughts
Speaker 2: and impulses travel, grew in thickened in size across the
Speaker 2: entire surface of their brains. The centers of the brains
Speaker 2: responsible for emotional regulation and executive function grew in size.
Speaker 2: The average reversal of brain age among the cohort of
Speaker 2: thirty veterans is one and a half years, with the
Speaker 2: top five seeing their brains reverse in age by almost
Speaker 2: five years. There are individuals who are receiving eye begain
Speaker 2: treatment to keep their symptoms of Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, and
Speaker 2: lame disease in remission. I cannot overstate the dramatic nature
Speaker 2: of these results because there is nothing known to modern
Speaker 2: medicine that actually regenerates the brain. Ibagain does and we
Speaker 2: are just on the very front end of recognizing that
Speaker 2: this has the potential to revolutionize Western medicine when it
Speaker 2: comes to anything and everything related to the brain.
Speaker 1: The study you're describing was done at Stanford, Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: so people can find it. Has anybody tried applying I
Speaker 1: begain to Alzheimer's.
Speaker 2: That has not been done, But given that neuro regenerative
Speaker 2: property that has been described, there's good reason to believe,
Speaker 2: particularly with early detection, that I begin can yield a
Speaker 2: significant improvement in the treatment of it, even if it
Speaker 2: does not necessarily cure it. And is anyone with a
Speaker 2: family member with dimension knows every additional day of good
Speaker 2: life that you can give someone who suffers from it
Speaker 2: is a wonderful treasure. And I certainly believe that we
Speaker 2: can see that.
Speaker 1: This could be an astonishing breakthrough in what has been
Speaker 1: a long losing struggle with addiction across this country. Now,
Speaker 1: does it have the same effect, for example, and people
Speaker 1: have cocaine or fentanyl or other kinds of addictions, or
Speaker 1: only on people who've been taking pharmacological addiction.
Speaker 2: Ibigain is an all purpose addiction interrupt The focus of
Speaker 2: scientific research has been upon opioid dependency, because that's for
Speaker 2: its point of discovery was initially made. However, right now,
Speaker 2: I was just on a call with a gentleman by
Speaker 2: the name of doctor Bruno S. Muschin, who in the
Speaker 2: state of South Paulo is a singular provider who uses
Speaker 2: ibigain to interrupt addiction to crack cocaine, which is on
Speaker 2: scale of use comparable to what we have here in
Speaker 2: the United States by way of opioid epidemic. Affective with opioids,
Speaker 2: it's affective with cocaine and crack cocaine. It is effective
Speaker 2: with alcohol, it is effective with myth. And what's so
Speaker 2: immensely important about that is there is not a single
Speaker 2: medication of any kind that has any effective impact on
Speaker 2: meth whatsoever. So you are correct. The opportunity to revolutionize
Speaker 2: addiction treatment with this therapeutic it is immense Well.
Speaker 1: It strikes me that the whole Make America Healthy Again movement,
Speaker 1: that this could be a very significant building block and
Speaker 1: getting us back to being a country that's not addicted.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine a more timely podcast than to be
Speaker 1: talking with you about this.
Speaker 2: Once serendipity becomes a pattern, it is no longer serendipitous.
Speaker 2: And as I have become individually educated about the genesis
Speaker 2: of MAHA, its foundational roots, and how all these individuals
Speaker 2: with different experiences but with common themes have converged, it
Speaker 2: is surreal insofar as Governor Perry and I have participated
Speaker 2: around this issue and can bring it to a MAHA
Speaker 2: movement that is absolutely bent in the direction a free
Speaker 2: an American society from the exploitation and monetization of human
Speaker 2: suffering than we are all in.
Speaker 1: As I understand of both Mexico and New Zealand are
Speaker 1: using I began already, what's their experience like.
Speaker 2: So you have clinics in Mexico, most of which have
Speaker 2: been set up by Canadian or American expats who have
Speaker 2: recognized and know what this can do. The overseas treatment
Speaker 2: infrastructure is very much a checkerboard of quality. You have
Speaker 2: some who know exactly what they're doing and they do
Speaker 2: it right, and then you have others who are playing
Speaker 2: with fire. New Zealand as infrastructure buyer, but it is
Speaker 2: not at scale, so The opportunity that is presented with
Speaker 2: Texas is to create that beachhead for eyebagame within the
Speaker 2: United States and to demonstrate how you do it safely, efficaciously,
Speaker 2: and at scale so as to make sure that there
Speaker 2: is the provision of access to anyone who needs it.
Speaker 2: And given how much money that we are spending on
Speaker 2: a seventy five percent failure rate, I can't imagine that
Speaker 2: there's any reason why, if we are honest and transparent
Speaker 2: about how we do this, that we can't assure universal
Speaker 2: access in a way that takes a significant burden off
Speaker 2: of our systems and families that suffer without effective atures.
Speaker 1: We currently have a sick care system when we need
Speaker 1: a healthcare system and the goal ask to me to
Speaker 1: get you back to health, not to maintain you in sickness.
Speaker 1: And this strikes me as a perfect example of that.
Speaker 1: This is very, very exciting to me. What do you
Speaker 1: think is the possibility that I began, we'll actually get
Speaker 1: approval from the FDA.
Speaker 2: One of the things that we did in Kentucky was
Speaker 2: conducted a hearing on this very question and within that
Speaker 2: here and we had two FDA officials at the time,
Speaker 2: one was the scientist General for Controlled Substances Research, and
Speaker 2: the other was a member of the FDA's Advisory Board
Speaker 2: of Neuropharmacology. Through their testimony, they expressed the fact that
Speaker 2: for the FDA, question around ibogain is whether those risks
Speaker 2: that are attendant with its administration, the cardiac risk can
Speaker 2: be safely mitigated. And as long as I answer that
Speaker 2: question was yes, there's no reason why the FDA would
Speaker 2: not approve hybergain treatment. Now I'll go one step further
Speaker 2: within the psychedelic universe. The reality is, with many of
Speaker 2: these medications, there is a notorious history of recreational use
Speaker 2: within left wing dregculture that has created a significant amount
Speaker 2: of stigma around our application to legitimate medical conditions. Ib
Speaker 2: again is blessed with no h hiss of recreational use
Speaker 2: in the arcana of American memory, because it's not a
Speaker 2: recreational substance. It's a very serious medication. For everything that
Speaker 2: has a recreational application, there's a significant street economy, whether
Speaker 2: that's cocaine, whether it's heroin, you name it. If there
Speaker 2: could be fun with it, there's a street economy for it.
Speaker 2: There is no street economy without again, the out again
Speaker 2: experience is very physically challenging, and it's not one that
Speaker 2: people seek out, and that's why people have never heard
Speaker 2: of an ibogain rave that don't exist. That lack of
Speaker 2: recreational abuse potential, I think is a significant strategic advantage
Speaker 2: ibogain has, in addition to its very unique neuro regenerative
Speaker 2: properties that we're just now beginning to understand.
Speaker 1: I would think, and I'd make this argument very strongly,
Speaker 1: to the degree that you're describing these successes and to
Speaker 1: the degree that we've seen, for example, with traumatic brain injury,
Speaker 1: these successes, the FDA has to balance risk against certainty.
Speaker 1: If you have a traumatic brain injury and we don't
Speaker 1: give you something at guiba gain, you will permanently have
Speaker 1: that injury. Therefore, there's a downside to not taking the
Speaker 1: risk of in a controlled environment, being aware of the
Speaker 1: heart concerns, trying to see if we can't give you your
Speaker 1: life back. What can listeners do to support the mission
Speaker 1: of Americans forible gain or to get involved in advancing
Speaker 1: access to new treatments.
Speaker 2: Sir, As you know, any successful shift in American politics,
Speaker 2: it's downstream from a shift that occurs in culture. And
Speaker 2: what I would ask your listeners to do is go
Speaker 2: to americansfibagain dot org. It has an Instagram presence. Governor
Speaker 2: Perry and I recognize that there's one of two ways
Speaker 2: that you win culture and thereby impact politics. You can
Speaker 2: either do it through the broad based dispersal of money,
Speaker 2: which we don't have, or you do it through the
Speaker 2: broad based dispersal of eliminating information that can activate, galvanize,
Speaker 2: and motivate a broad based cultural movement to advance progress.
Speaker 2: We aim to shepherd a broad based unity opportunity that
Speaker 2: involves the creation of a diverse coalition with the common
Speaker 2: value of seeing this emancipation medication be fully integrated into
Speaker 2: the US healthcare system as expeditiously as possible. This is
Speaker 2: the Manhattan Project of our time, and anyone who is
Speaker 2: hearing about this, I would encourage them to engage the organization,
Speaker 2: follow on social media, get the word out as to
Speaker 2: what this is and what it can do to lift
Speaker 2: up those who are living at the end of hope,
Speaker 2: and as we move into other states starting in January
Speaker 2: of twenty six, leverage those networks of voices to make
Speaker 2: clear that we are going to demand responsive leadership that
Speaker 2: supports the integration of appagain into the US healthcare system
Speaker 2: as expeditiously as possible.
Speaker 1: I can assure you, Brian, I'm so inspired by this
Speaker 1: conversation that I'm personally going to be strongly engaged in
Speaker 1: moving the idea around and getting people to look at it.
Speaker 1: You're really doing something which will, over the next generation,
Speaker 1: save several million lives. It's amazing.
Speaker 2: Thank you, sir, and just to know that you are
Speaker 2: willing to engage as you describe. As I said before
Speaker 2: we got online, I've been an admirer of few years
Speaker 2: for a very long time, and Governor Praier and I
Speaker 2: welcome your enthusiastic participation in whatever way you want to
Speaker 2: give it.
Speaker 1: Good Well, listen, I want to thank you for joining
Speaker 1: me in giving all of us a insight on ibogain
Speaker 1: and its potential for treatments. And I want to let
Speaker 1: our listeners know they can find out more about Americans
Speaker 1: for Ibogain by visiting your website at americansfibogain dot org,
Speaker 1: which will also be on our show page. So thank
Speaker 1: you so much for drawing.
Speaker 2: Us, Missus Baker. It's been an honor and a privileged
Speaker 2: thank you, sir.
Speaker 1: Thank you to my guest w Bryan Hubbard. You can
Speaker 1: learn more about Americans for Ibogain on our show page
Speaker 1: at newtworld dot com. Newtworld is produced by Gainglish three
Speaker 1: sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan. Our
Speaker 1: researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was
Speaker 1: created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team with
Speaker 1: Ginglish three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newsworld, I hope
Speaker 1: you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with
Speaker 1: five stars and give us a review so others can
Speaker 1: learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of news
Speaker 1: World can sign up for my three free weekly columns
Speaker 1: at ginglistree sixty dot com slash newsletter I'm new Gingrich.
Speaker 1: This is news Walk