Ibogaine versus Iboga and the difference between plant and molecule

The video above is the full conversation. You can also listen to it or read the transcript. What follows is the same argument in writing, with more of the background behind it and the research it touches.

People ask me all the time whether iboga and ibogaine are the same thing. The short answer: iboga is a plant, and ibogaine is one of the alkaloids the plant makes (Farrow et al., 2018). Ibogaine HCl is a salt form of that one compound, purified into a white powder. They are related. They are not interchangeable.

I am initiated in Bwiti and continue training with Gabonese elders in Brazil and Gabon. I have also worked at multiple ibogaine clinics. Those experiences shape the questions I bring to this conversation: what do we gain when we isolate a molecule, what might we leave out of the wider tradition, and how do we take medical assessment and safety seriously while respecting that tradition?

1. What is the difference between iboga and ibogaine?

Tabernanthe iboga is a shrub from Central Africa. Its root bark contains a family of related alkaloids, which are the plant's naturally occurring active compounds. Ibogaine is the most abundant of them, and it is the one science pulled out, purified, and studied. If you want the basics on the molecule itself, start with what ibogaine is.

In the video I put it this way: iboga is ibogaine, but ibogaine is not iboga. Said more precisely, iboga contains ibogaine, and ibogaine on its own reproduces neither the whole plant nor the traditional setting it has been taken in for generations.

Think of a single instrument and the ensemble it plays in. The violin is in the orchestra, but a violin alone is not the orchestra. That picture describes what is in each preparation. It does not tell you which one works better, and I will come back to that.

2. What my Bwiti initiation and training have taught me

My initiation and my ongoing training with Gabonese elders are where my questions about isolation come from. I speak from my own training and lineage here. Bwiti is not one uniform practice, and I would not speak for all of it.

The thing the tradition has taught me most clearly is that iboga is a spiritual medicine before it is anything else. It was a medicine long before anyone used it for addiction or gave it in a hospital. In the tradition, the plant is not taken as a one-night event, and you are not alone with it: there are people around you who know the medicine, and there is time before and after.

That shapes how I see the clinical model. When we isolate one molecule and deliver it in a few days, we keep the chemistry we can measure and risk losing the setting, the relationships, and the time that the tradition treats as part of the medicine. Nothing about my initiation is a medical qualification. It is the lens I bring.

3. What I learned from working at multiple ibogaine clinics

Before Nekawa, I helped launch six ibogaine projects in Mexico and Costa Rica. I also went through ibogaine treatment myself, in Tijuana in 2013. So I have seen this from both sides.

A few things kept coming up. Programs were short, often only a few days, and people were on a plane home soon after the medicine. In my own experience it takes at least a week before I even want to look at my phone again, and for some people it takes weeks. Expectations were often set by marketing, and people came out of treatment feeling they had not got what they were promised. And the support afterwards was thin at exactly the point people needed it most.

These are my observations, not outcome data. They are the reason I care so much about preparation, time, and people around you afterwards.

4. Ibogaine HCl and full-spectrum preparations

Most clinics use ibogaine HCl. It is precise, easy to measure, and behind most of the published research. The alternative is iboga root bark itself, or a full-spectrum extract that keeps the plant's alkaloids together.

Clinics have long avoided the plant, and the concern is real. Root bark varies, and products are often mislabeled. One lab analysis of products sold by treatment providers found that ibogaine content ranged from none to about three quarters, with unidentified substances in almost every sample (Bouso et al., 2020). So "full spectrum" on a label tells you very little by itself. What matters is the actual preparation, how it was tested, and whether its ibogaine content is known.

I value the wider plant experience. Researchers have raised the possibility that the other alkaloids work together with ibogaine (Michele & Sophie, 2023), and in my experience the visionary side tends to open more fully with the whole plant. But whether those alkaloids improve safety, effectiveness, or the experience itself is still a research question. The published picture on visions is mixed: in one survey of people who had taken ibogaine, most said visions filled a large part of the experience (Heink et al., 2017).

5. Why I question the focus on one intense experience

Most clinics give a flood dose: one large dose, and that is the treatment. The traditional pattern I was trained in spreads smaller amounts over several days, so the experience builds instead of peaking once and dropping away.

I care about this because what ibogaine does best, in my experience, is introspection. It puts you in front of your own life. One intense night gives you a glimpse. Several days give you time to understand what is coming up.

There is a safety argument people make for it too, me included. A large analysis released this year found that every death in its data, six of them, was in someone treated for opioid use disorder, at flood-sized doses (Arns et al., 2026). That study is a preprint, not yet peer reviewed, and the authors call their rate a floor, not the true figure. Less ibogaine at any one moment should mean a lower peak load on the heart.

But nobody has shown that smaller, repeated doses are safer or more effective. Ibogaine's main metabolite stays in the body for days and builds up when doses are repeated. In one published repeated-dose study, the researchers named that build-up as the main limitation, and one of fifteen patients died during treatment (Noller et al., 2018). This is treatment philosophy, not dosing advice. See Nekawa's safety information for the medical side.

6. Spiritual meaning alongside medical care

Right now ibogaine is framed almost entirely as a medical treatment. My view is that the spiritual side should come first, with medical care built around it, not left out.

In practice that means preparation before the medicine, spiritual guides with you during it, and community afterwards: people who have been through it and can sit with you when the hard part arrives. Bill W., who co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous, described addiction as a spiritual problem at its root, and I think he was onto something.

That is my perspective, not the whole picture. Addiction and mental health also have biological, psychological, and social sides. For opioid use disorder, ongoing evidence-based care matters: people who received medications such as methadone or buprenorphine after a nonfatal overdose had lower death rates in the following year (Larochelle et al., 2018). If you take prescribed medication, do not stop it on your own.

7. What research supports and what remains uncertain

Personal experience and clinical evidence are different things, and you deserve both, clearly labeled.

On the evidence side: in a small observational study of 30 people treated for opioid use disorder, many reported less withdrawal and less drug use afterwards, though only about a quarter reported a month without opioids at the one-year mark (Brown & Alper, 2018). With no comparison group, a study like that cannot show that ibogaine beats other treatments, or that it cures anything.

On safety: ibogaine can disturb the heart's electrical timing, known as QT prolongation, which can raise the risk of dangerous arrhythmias. Picture the heart muscle taking longer to reset electrically after each beat. In a Dutch hospital study of 14 people given a single dose, half reached a level cardiologists treat as a warning sign, and all had severe but temporary trouble walking (Knuijver et al., 2022). Heart rhythm problems are among the most serious adverse events in the published reports (Ona et al., 2022).

Neither a traditional setting nor a purified preparation removes that risk. Screening and monitoring are needed either way.

8. Questions to take into a conversation about care

If you are considering ibogaine, for yourself or someone you love, ask:

• What preparation is being used? Ibogaine HCl, root bark, or an extract, and has its content been tested?
• What evidence supports this approach, and what is the provider's own experience rather than research?
• Who decides whether it is medically suitable for me, and who checks my medications for interactions?
• What monitoring happens during and after, including heart monitoring?
• What support is there afterwards, and for how long?

The 2016 clinical guidelines for ibogaine-assisted detoxification are a useful educational reference for these questions (Dickinson et al., 2016). They are not a regulatory standard.

So, ibogaine or iboga? For me, both: the respect for the plant and its tradition, and the seriousness about medical safety. If you want to find out whether this is a fit for you, start Nekawa's screening process, and talk it through with a qualified clinician as well. You will get an honest assessment, not a promise.

This conversation is one of the four subjects in our live webinar with Tricycle Day on October 24.

Related reading

• What is ibogaine?
• Is ibogaine safe?
• Frequently asked questions
• Nekawa resources
• Natural ibogaine treatment
• Why 28 days? Preparation, integration, and the jungle in ibogaine care

About the author

Charles D. Johnston is co-founder and lead teacher of Nekawa. After years of heroin and cocaine addiction, he went through ibogaine treatment in 2013 and helped launch six ibogaine projects in Mexico and Costa Rica before founding Nekawa in Brazil. He is initiated in Bwiti and continues training with Gabonese elders in Brazil and Gabon. He is the author of Facets of Ayahuasca (2018) and executive producer of Curandera (2025). Read his story.