Then (1987), Storming Heaven
The Veterans' Ibogaine Breakthrough: A 1968 Pattern That Didn't Repeat
Stevens documented how the research program was killed by political circumstance in 1968. His implicit question: will the second wave avoid the same fate? The veterans' ibogaine movement represents the most direct test of whether the second wave has learned from the first.
confirmed
Texas SB 2308 (signed May 2025, Republican governor Greg Abbott): $50 million for ibogaine research for veterans, the largest state investment in psychedelic research in US history. Bipartisan support: sponsored by conservative Republican legislators, backed by veterans' advocacy groups including VETS Foundation, supported by the VA-adjacent research community. Mississippi ibogaine research bill (March 2026): additional Republican-sponsored legislation. This represents the first genuine bipartisan legislative achievement for psychedelic research, specifically because the veteran framing removed the countercultural association that doomed the first wave. Stevens's lesson, that countercultural association is the research program's greatest political risk, has been operationally applied: the ibogaine coalition is deliberately military, patriotic, and conservative-coded.
Sources
- Texas SB 2308 (2025)
- Stanford ibogaine trial (Cherian et al., Nature Medicine 2024)
- VETS Foundation advocacy record