Posted on | April 17, 2026 | No Comments
“Not much has been written about The Ibogaine Effect as a serious factor in the Presidential Campaign, but toward the end of the Wisconsin primary race — about a week before the vote — word leaked out that some of Muskie’s top advisors had called in a Brazilian doctor who was said to be treating the candidate with ‘some kind of strange drug’ that nobody in the press corps had ever heard of. . . . I immediately recognized The Ibogaine Effect — from Muskie’s tearful breakdown on the flatbed truck in New Hampshire, the delusions and altered thinking that characterized his campaign in Florida, and finally the condition of ‘total rage’ that gripped him in Wisconsin. There was no doubt about it: The Man from Maine had turned to massive doses of Ibogaine as a last resort. The only remaining question was ‘when did he start?’”
— Hunter S. Thompson
You have to understand the background of that campaign to understand why Hunter S. Thompson thought it would be funny to invent a rumor that a U.S. Senator was addicted to ibogaine. First of all, Thompson hated Hubert Humphrey like God hates sin, and in 1968, Ed Muskie had been Humphrey’s vice presidential running mate on the Democratic ticket that lost to Richard Nixon. For reasons that were never adequately explained at the time, and which seem ridiculous in hindsight, the media pundits and Democratic Party power brokers decided in advance of the 1972 campaign that Muskie was the front-runner, the man to beat. Thompson had other ideas, playing his hunch that the anti-war left wing (which had chased LBJ out the White House with their votes for Eugene McCarthy in the 1968 New Hampshire primary) would play a decisive role in the Democratic primaries. So at the very start of the 1972 campaign, Thompson was nearly the only national reporter covering South Dakota Sen. George McGovern on the trail in New Hampshire.
The very idea of Rolling Stone sending a correspondent to cover the presidential campaign was weird, at the time, and Thompson’s eccentricities were notorious enough that his hunch about McGovern’s chances didn’t get much credit from other reporters on the campaign trail, and yet in the end he was vindicated — especially in regard to his contempt for the “mainstream” consensus front-runner Ed Muskie. Once McGovern won the Wisconsin primary in April, Muskie’s campaign was in disarray and the party bosses who wanted to stop McGovern shifted their support to Humphrey in a desperate bid to keep the peace freaks from taking over the Democratic Party. I’ve always figured Thompson’s riff about Muskie being an ibogaine addict was his way of kicking the doomed loser while he was down. Anyway, today Stephen Green at Instapundit called attention to a story from CBS News:
Trump to sign executive order on psychedelic drug used abroad to treat PTSD
A psychedelic used in some countries to treat post-traumatic stress disorder is expected to get a closer examination from the federal government on its safety and effectiveness, sources told CBS News.
The White House is drafting an executive order that would signal the Trump administration’s willingness to further U.S. research into a drug called ibogaine.
Ibogaine, a naturally occurring compound from a shrub native to Africa, is used to treat depression, anxiety, addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder and brain trauma.
Because it’s illegal in the United States, Americans have been traveling to unregulated clinics, often in Mexico or the Caribbean, to take the drug.
The Trump administration doesn’t plan to reclassify the drug for medical use at this time — it will remain a Schedule I drug.
President Trump intends to sign the executive order as soon as this week, two of the sources said.
White House spokespeople didn’t immediately comment.
The action on ibogaine is meant to open the door to federal funding for further research on its effectiveness with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries, especially among veterans, several sources said.
“60 Minutes” last year covered a group of nine U.S. veterans who traveled to a remote village near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, for a week-long psychedelic retreat to deal with intrusive memories.
Texas has made a big push to study ibogaine. Gov. Greg Abbott last year signed a bill approving $50 million for research.
Trump officials said the medical research into ibogaine is in an early phase, but the administration wants to help determine whether it’s “snake oil” or a legitimate treatment, one official said.
As a Schedule I substance, ibogaine is currently grouped by the Drug Enforcement Administration alongside heroin, ecstasy and other drugs that have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” . . .
Researchers say ibogaine could eventually fill a gap in addiction treatment, particularly for opioid dependence, but more large-scale clinical trials are needed before it can be considered safe or effective for any condition.
The scientific evidence behind the drug so far consists mostly of small observational studies and open-label trials. Only one double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial has been completed. More advanced trials are just now getting underway.
The most serious risk is to the heart. Ibogaine can cause dangerous heart rhythm disturbances, which can be fatal. A review in 2023 of 24 studies involving 705 people found that while ibogaine appeared to reduce withdrawal symptoms and craving, toxicity to the heart and risk of death were “worrying.” At least 27 people have died after taking ibogaine, the 2023 report showed.
In a small study of 30 veterans who received ibogaine paired with intravenous magnesium to protect the heart, no serious cardiac events were reported. The study, which was published last July by Stanford Medicine, found that the drug safely reduces post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression in veterans when combined with magnesium to protect the heart.
Going with the PTSD angle, are we? Yeah, give me a prescription, because Alabama lost four games last season, and the emotional trauma was real. But it’s just crazy how ibogaine, a drug that almost nobody had heard of when Hunter S. Thompson wrote about it in 1972, is now getting serious attention from the Trump administration. We live in Gonzo times, and when the going gets weird, the weird vote Republican.
