Ibogaine Pioneer Howard Lotsof Dead at Age 66
Ibogaine advocate Howard Lotsof, 66, died January 31 in Staten Island, New York. Liver cancer killed him.
In 1962, Lotsof, a Bronx native, was strung out on heroin when he ingested a sample of the West African psychoactive substance ibogaine. Rocked by the hallucinatory experience, Lotsof was even more stunned when he realized that after ibogaine he no longer felt compelled to use heroin.
For 20 years after that, Lotsof went about his life in the television and movie business, but when an accident cut that career short, he returned to ibogaine and began working to make it available as an addiction treatment. In 1986, he founded a company, NDA International, and began treating clients in Amsterdam.
Lotsof originated numerous patents for ibogaine in treating addictions and provided data to the National Institute on Drug Abuse that laid the groundwork for still ongoing research on ibogaine and its use as an anti-addictive substance. More than 60 peer-reviewed scientific papers on ibogaine have been published so far.
Thanks almost entirely to Lotsof and his supporters, including Dana Beal and Cures Not Wars, an international network of ibogaine clinics is now in place and treating addicted clients. Lotsof was not a doctor or scientist—his college degree was in film—but an outsider who still managed to bring ibogaine in from the cold and win it academic and scientific respect.
He will be missed.
Location:
New York City, NY
United States
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R.I.P. Howard Lotsoff
With all of the money put into research on drug addiction, it took a "drug user" to come up with the best technology we have today for dependency. Ibogaine is truly an option for people dependent on drugs. And Dana Beal, also an activist for medical marijuana is facing marijuana charges. It is clear that an answer to the current "drug problem" is really not being sought. When we come up with solutions, the drug war warriors do not want to know. Offers of real recovery do not fit into the "drug war plan".
howard lotsof
you will most definitely be missed i had the most wonderful opportuninity of taking care of your mother in law may you r.i p
howard lotsof
you will most definitely be missed i had the most wonderful opportuninity of taking care of your mother in law may you r.i p
Rest In Peace Howard Lotsoff
We had our disagreements but eventually managed to move past our differences. I hope he is
at peace on the other side.
REST IN PEACE
My name is Anne Ardolino and although Howard and I had
our arguments and disagreements regarding certain issues, we did eventually
patch things up. I am sorry he's gone and I hope he is at peace on the
other side.
:)
Thank you so much for all your work Howard. You save many lives and will continue to do so. A REAL doctor!!
Ibogaine
I have done some pretty extensive research regarding Ibogaine. I watched a documentary last night that was a study on the relation between differing methamphetamine factors (IE: arrests, crime increases, and the like) which created graphical highs and lows produced over a number of years. The result of all this time and effort was interesting information, but not surprising. The net result was that the availability of the supply of the key ingredient: psuedo and/or ephedrine affected the purity of the drug and the addictive results of the purest meth created the highs, and thusly when the supply dropped, so did the strength and the related factors. Years of research, one hour of info and not one mention that in 1962, Howard Lotsoff stumbled across a "cure" for meth and other ILLEGAL addictive drugs and in 1985, he patented a form of Ibogaine. He spent the remainder of his life trying to convince the "Powers that Be" that this controlled substance had a benefit to many, despite its facets of "unpredictability" and/or risks. Why am I one of the only people that I know that has even heard of this root which originates in Africa and is commonly used for ritual boy to manhood ceremonies? The book that I originally found out about Ibogaine was Copyrighted in 1996. Clinical trials has commenced by the FDA and other organizations during the writing of this book and approval was anticipated soon thereafter. Is there a true fear factor that this drug would or could be more harmful than Methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, morphine, and the like, even as a controlled substance or was there something or someone who had or has much more to fear by approval and regulation of this "drug"? If its results are as I have found, the side effects seems to be no less harmful than the standard side effects and disclaimers that accompany nearly every drug advertised on the market today. The suffering, deaths, rapes, and families torn asunder seem to have no impact whatsoever on the deciding minds that have chosen to oppress this substance and its curative effects versus the drug epidemics and the negative results that we face in today's society. Why is this happening? What can we do as a community to combat this reckless abandon for addiction across the board, that now stands at best a 1/3 recovery rate under conventional methods such as AA, treatment centers, counseling, and the like? If we were to eliminate the craving for these other drugs, think of who would really suffer....the need for our jails would be quite negatively effected, the drugs such as methadone may be much less prescribed, the drug cartels may not have an attractive product to sell....etc. It seems that the rights of humans to have a better option to release themselves from the bounds of addiction have been violated in favor of economics. I'm disturbed by this, is anyone else out there? I could elaborate in many instances here but I wanted to keep this as brief as possible to get my point across. I implore a response from anyone who cares to give one!
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