One Pill Makes You Better

By Vince Beiser, Sacramento News & Review. Posted January 6, 2005.

The first thing was a loud buzzing in his ears, as though a swarm of bees was swirling around his head. Then the hallucinations kicked in. The patterns in the blanket tacked to the ceiling above him glowed vibrantly and then began transforming into the faces of members of his family, faces that turned themselves inside-out and back again. He saw his father finding him dead with a needle in his arm. He saw himself in a beautiful field of flowers. He saw Jesus standing outside the Earth, creating different races of men and placing them on different continents.

While Shawn's mind reeled through this visual cacophony, his body lay quietly in a darkened room in a house near Tijuana, Mexico, deep in the grip of a powerful psychedelic drug. The Sacramento house where he lived with his father was far, far away. Shawn (who asked that his real name not be printed) was in Tijuana because he was desperate. He was addicted to heroin and cocaine, a suffocating habit that had landed him in jail several times and had left him so wretched – even when he was out from behind bars – that he wanted to die.

At 22 years old, he was going through three grams each of heroin and coke every few days. "I had a needle in my arm every 20 minutes," he said. "I was desperate, completely miserable."

He supported himself by selling, out of his car, what he told customers were stolen laptop computers; after he pocketed their money and drove off, his victims would learn that they had just paid hundreds of dollars for a counterfeit computer box filled with junk.

Shawn had tried to quit drugs more than a dozen times, with the help of everything from Narcotics Anonymous to detox programs. Nothing worked. At the end of his rope, he found himself following a tip from a junkie friend, slipping over the border to try a treatment that is as much an urban myth as a scientifically proven medication – and is as illegal as crack in the United States.

The treatment is a dose of a powerful hallucinogen called ibogaine. It is derived from the roots of a shrub called Tabernanthe iboga, which grows in western Africa. Local tribespeople have used it as a peyote-like sacrament for generations. Since the 1960s, it has circulated on the margins of Western drug culture, sustained by its reputation as a potent healer. A single daylong trip on ibogaine, lore has it, can help break an addiction to heroin, cocaine, alcohol or cigarettes.

Now, interest in ibogaine seems to be approaching a kind of critical mass. The increasing number of anecdotal success stories has attracted the attention of serious researchers. Although there is no rock-solid proof, scientific consensus that this strange drug indeed may possess potent addiction-thwarting properties is increasing.

Meanwhile, regardless of what science says, faith is flourishing. A devoted community has grown up around ibogaine – a motley congregation of former junkies, envelope-pushing academics and drug-reform zealots helping to spread awareness and use of the drug. There reportedly are at least two underground activists in the United States who will provide it to seekers illegally. But taking ibogaine doesn't have to involve breaking laws – it's legal in many countries. As a result, clinics are popping up from the Caribbean to Pakistan, offering ibogaine treatment for anywhere from a few thousand dollars to well more than $10,000.

The clinic near Tijuana is, relatively speaking, among the most reputable. It was opened in 2001 by Martin Polanco, a Mexican doctor who was impressed with how ibogaine – obtained at an underground U.S. clinic – had helped one of his relatives beat a cocaine addiction. Polanco's facility, known as the Ibogaine Association, has administered more than 350 treatments and currently has 10 to 15 new patients a month, says program director Randy Hencken.

Hencken, a tall, thin 28-year-old with curly hair and little studs in each ear, was one of Polanco's first patients. He had dropped out of college at 21 to devote himself to cocaine and, eventually, heroin. Throughout the years, he tried everything from 12-step programs to methadone to get clean, but nothing worked. He discovered ibogaine on the Internet, made his way to Polanco's facility and returned with his addiction broken. He since has embraced the cause with a convert's zeal, taking a job as the association's main organizer.

Last summer, Hencken invited me to follow one of the association's patients through a full ibogaine treatment. I met Hencken shortly thereafter in a San Diego apartment that doubles as the association's U.S. office. The place fits naturally in the beachside slacker-student-surfer neighborhood. The front room is furnished with worn couches and a computer emblazoned with a Jane's Addiction sticker. A bike and surfboards hang on hooks in the kitchen.

Hencken, dressed in a black T-shirt and pants, with a thick wallet chain, hopped into an unmarked van and drove to a dingy airport motel. Waiting in the parking lot was Craig, a trim, compact man wearing loafers, khakis and a Nike T-shirt.

"I've got to admit this is a little weird," said Craig, a 50-year-old restaurant owner from Salt Lake City who flew in the night before. "I feel like we're doing a drug deal." And, in a sense, they were. Craig got into the van, and they rolled south.

Craig was highly motivated to undertake this bizarre journey. He was an alcoholic for years, with the smashed cars and nights in jail to show for it. He quit drinking 16 years ago and has stayed sober. But a few years ago, he was prescribed painkillers for a knee injury and discovered that he liked them. He began downing fistfuls of pills daily, scoring them from one of his employees. "At first it was recreational," he recalled. "But then you find yourself doing them just to get from point A to B, and you know it's a problem."

Vince Beiser is a freelance journalist based in Los Angeles.