Kentucky has announced that they are investing $42 million that they received as a portion of the Opioid Settlement Fund into psychedelic research with a particular focus on ibogaine.
The announcement was made by Daniel Cameron, Attorney General for Kentucky.
Reason for Hope and the Veteran Mental Health Leadership Coalition were instrumental in their campaigning for the funding.
Over 2000 citizens of Kentucky die from addiction each year, in part due to the opioid crisis, which is one key reason why the state is looking into psychedelic research.
Ibogaine, in particular, has been singled out as a key element of the psychedelic research in Kentucky for its possible benefits in treating opioid addiction.
The $42 million will be split over six years for the creation of public-private partnerships with the hopes that they can drive ibogaine through to FDA approval.
Ibogaine was first used as a treatment for addiction in the 1960s with experiments conducted by Howard Lotsof.
Lotsof first experimented with ibogaine to treat his heroin addiction. Soon after, he took 20 drug experimenters to try many hallucinogens.
The results were positive with the seven people who were addicted to heroin at the time said they were no longer in withdrawal and after six months, five of them had lost their desire to use heroin.
New York and Vermont are two other states that have introduced bills that aim to legalise a broad range of natural psychedelics including ibogaine for research and treatment of addiction.
Thomas Kingsley Brown completed a study on ibogaine in 2017 for using the drug as a treatment for addiction.
The major findings of the study were that ibogaine was effective for detox, the reduction in opioid usage which began in one month continued for twelve months. They also found that there was long-term improvement in social and family status.
