A promising new partnership announced in Ohio this week will explore the use of the psychedelic compound ibogaine to treat opioid use disorder (OUD). The Reaching Everyone in Distress Foundation (REID), an Ohio-based charitable organization focused on addiction, announced an emerging collaboration this week that may lead to the execution of U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved ibogaine clinical research trials in Ohio.
In launching the initiative, the REID Foundation announced a partnership with former Kentucky Opioid Abatement Commission Chairman Bryan Hubbard to research and raise awareness for emerging therapies such as ibogaine as potential breakthrough treatments for PTSD and opioid addiction in Ohio. REID Foundation announced that Hubbard has also been retained by ResultsOHIO within the state treasurer’s office to explore projects related to the treatment of traumatic brain injury (TBI), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other mental health and substance use conditions.
“I’m honored to work with the REID Foundation and the people of Ohio to bring hope and healing to veterans and families being torn apart by the opioid crisis,” Hubbard said in a prepared statement. “The development of ibogaine as a treatment option for opioid-dependent individuals is a moral imperative.”
As former head of the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission, Hubbard championed a plan to direct a portion of Kentucky’s proceeds from a legal settlement against opioid manufacturers toward clinical trials of ibogaine as a treatment for OUD. After more than a year of public hearings and testimony, Kentucky’s newly elected attorney general abruptly asked Hubbard to resign from that commission because of his advocacy for the initiative, and the effort was abandoned. But now, the REID Foundation has recruited Hubbard to continue his work in Ohio.
The collaboration aims to pair the REID Foundation and ResultsOHIO, a public-private partnership, “pay-for-success” framework within the treasurer’s office. ResultsOHIO requires private financiers to pay upfront costs for promising new projects but allows later public reimbursement of some expenditures only if the project yields verifiable results. In this case, the targeted result will be the emergence of a highly effective new treatment to aid individuals in overcoming opioid addiction.
Ibogaine is a psychedelic compound found in the Central African iboga shrub. Early research shows it may be far more effective than available treatments for OUD and may allow individuals to overcome both physical dependency and psychological addiction with as little as one treatment. A new study published in the journal Nature showed ibogaine can be safely administered under medical care to treat brain injury and PTSD.
As chair of the Kentucky commission charged with distributing opioid settlement funds, Hubbard spent about a year holding public hearings and allowing experts to testify on the prospective benefits of ibogaine. Hubbard had hoped to allocate around $42 million, or around 5% of Kentucky’s share of settlement funds toward a public-private partnership that would conduct FDA-supervised trials of ibogaine.
Coleman’s termination of Kentucky’s ibogaine initiative was a major blow to activists who were hopeful there could be a more effective treatment for loved ones suffering from opioid use disorder. The news of REID and Hubbard’s work in Ohio sends a clear message that some policymakers are eager to pursue the promise of unconventional therapies to address the opioid crisis.