Gabon longs to cash in on sacred hallucinogenic remedy found in plant roots

Proponents say shrub can help beat addictions.

- By Lea Nkamleun Fosso

Beneath yellow fruit, hidden within the roots of the iboga plant in the forests of Gabon, lies a sacred treasure that the country is keen to make the most of.

For centuries, religious devotees have eaten it — a psychotropic shrub that users say has addiction-fighting powers.

It fascinates foreign visitors, psychiatric patients and rich pharmaceutical companies that want to market it.

Now this central African country, where its use is enshrined in ancestral tradition, is scrambling to avoid missing out on the boom.

Teddy Van Bonda Ndong, 31, an initiate in the Bwiti spiritual tradition, calls it "sacred wood". He consumes it in small amounts daily, he said, for his "mental and physical health".

"It has a lot of power to help human beings," added Stephen Windsor-Clive, a 68-year-old retiree.

"It's untapped. A mysterious force lies within this plant."

He travelled to Gabon from Britain and consumed iboga — in a powder ground from its roots — during a 10-day Bwiti ceremony.

He tried it with a view to adopting it as a treatment for his daughter, who suffers from mental illness.

Given the interest, Gabon is seeking to channel the plant onto the international marketplace.

Exports of iboga products, including its active ingredient ibogaine, are few and strictly regulated in the country.