Newt Gingrich, former U.S. House speaker (R-GA), extolled ibogaine’s therapeutic potential on a podcast episode. He drew attention to a Stanford University Study that showed the psychedelic could treat PTSD and anxiety in veterans who had suffered traumatic brain injuries.
This could be a breakthrough in 10 to 15 year’s time, he stated on an episode of Newt World aired earlier this month.
Gingrich noted that the paper 2024, which was written by the executive of Americans for Ibogaine, had some of its most important findings. These included a 88 percent decrease in PTSD symptoms, a 87 percent decline in depression and 81 percent drop in anxiety.
The former speaker, who wrote about the future of healing on social media: “The future may lie in an old plant.”
Nolan Williams was the episode’s special guest. He is a Stanford professor and co-author of this study. Williams answered Gingrich’s questions and explained the main findings of his paper.
Former House Speaker said he thought one problem with U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved research was that it tended to focus on the dangers and risks of controlled substances, rather than their therapeutic potential.
“Historically, the FDA has had a problem in that it measures the cost to say yes but not the cost to say no,” said he. You know there are many people who commit suicide and I think this will help to minimize that. It’s important to calculate the number of lives that are saved yearly compared with the risks. It’s not clear to me that the FDA measures anything. “It’s all about the risk of using it, and not the cost to not use it.”
Williams replied that his study showed that “80-plus percent of people lost their…suicidal thinking, and they held that out through the end of the year.”
He added that “we had no follow-up participant who had actually attempted suicide or committed suicide.”
“And to your point, whether it be veterans suicide or opioid overdoses,” the researcher continued, “this is a drug that can actually decrease the symptoms of detox for opiates…and reduce people’s discomfort in going through opiate detox, in addition of reducing craving. The opioid crisis, the veterans suicide crisis—we think this has great potential for doing that.”
The study looked at 30 U.S. Special Forces veterans who underwent supervised ibogaine therapy in combination with taking magnesium—an addition meant to mitigate the drug’s cardiac risks. Williams said that the magnesium supplement may significantly reduce the risk of arrhythmia.
Gingrich stated that research such as the Williams study will be crucial in convincing federal decisionmakers, like Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to accelerate access to ibogaine treatment.
Williams was told, “I believe your study will be a significant step in putting pressure on people like Secretary Kennedy to bring it to this country.” If ibogaine is found to possess the same variety of effects that we’ve seen, he said its impact would be “staggering.”
Former House Speaker also stated that agencies such as the Department of Veterans Affairs needs “a higher sense of urgency.”
It should become a major national initiative to teach people how to use the device, ensure it is safe and then make it widely available to all Veterans Administration programs, he added.
Gingrich referred to a state development that is noteworthy on his podcast, namely the recent legislation passed by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to create a state-backed research consortium to conduct clinical trials on ibogaine as a possible treatment for substance use disorders and other mental health conditions.
Texas’ ultimate goal is to turn the drug into a prescribed prescription with FDA approval. The state will retain a share of profits.
In Gingrich’s earlier podcast episode with W. Brian Hubbard, executive director of Americans for Ibogaine, the former House speaker said that ibogaine represents an “astonishing breakthrough” in the nation’s current “sick care system” that’s left people with serious mental health conditions without access to promising alternative treatment options—and that he intended to use his influence to advance the issue.
He said that this could be a breakthrough for the long-running battle against addiction in America. “It strikes me that the whole ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement—that this could be a very significant building block in getting us back to being a country that’s not addicted. “I can’t think of a better podcast to talk with you about it.”
Gingrich acknowledged that FDA must “balance the risk against certainty,” and stressed the importance of studies that support the use ibogaine within a controlled environment. He said that Hubbard’s conversation with him “inspired” him to take a personal interest in spreading the word and encouraging people to examine the issue.
The therapeutic potential of psychedelics is being promoted in many ways. This includes prominent media outlets and the Trump Administration.
In a Fox News interview, for example, the Navy SEAL veteran who is credited with the killing of Osama bin Laden stated that the psychedelic treatment has helped him to process his trauma during his military service. He stressed that the therapy “works” and that it should be a viable option.
That interview came days after the U.S. House of Representatives included an amendment to a spending bill from Reps. Lou Correa (D-CA) and Jack Bergman (R-MI) that would encourage VA to support research into the benefits of psychedelics in treating medical conditions commonly affecting military veterans.
Meanwhile, HHS Secretary Kennedy recently said his agency is “absolutely committed” to expanding research on the benefits of psychedelic therapy and, alongside of the head of FDA, is aiming to provide legal access to such substances for military veterans “within 12 months.”
VA Secretary Doug Collins disclosed that in April he spoke with Kennedy, a former president of the United States about the therapeutic possibilities of psychedelic drugs. He said that he is open to having vouchers provided by the government to pay for psychedelic therapies for veterans receiving services from outside the VA, as Congress looks at pathways to access.
Collins also recently visited a facility conducting research on psychedelics, and he reiterated that it’s his “promise” to advance research into the therapeutic potential of the substances—even if that might take certain policy changes within the department and with congressional support.
The secretary’s visit to the psychedelics research center came about a month after the VA secretary met with a military veteran who’s become an advocate for psilocybin access to discuss the therapeutic potential of psychedelic medicine for the veteran community.
Collins also briefly raised the issue in a Cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump in April.
Reps. Lou Correa (D-CA) and Jack Bergman (R-MI)—co-chairs of the Congressional Psychedelic Advancing Therapies (PATH) Caucus—introduced a bill in April to provide $30 million in funding annually to establish psychedelics-focused “centers for excellence” at VA facilities, where veterans could receive novel treatment involving substances like psilocybin, MDMA and ibogaine.
Bergman has also expressed optimism about the prospects of advancing psychedelics reform under Trump, arguing that the administration’s efforts to cut spending and the federal workforce will give agencies “spines” to tackle such complex issues.
Kennedy, for his part, also said in April that he had a “wonderful experience” with LSD at 15 years old, which he took because he thought he’d be able to see dinosaurs, as portrayed in a comic book he was a fan of.
Kennedy criticised the FDA in October last year for its “suppression” of psychedelics and an array of other problems that he compared to a “war against public health” which would cease under Trump’s administration.
In December, VA separately announced that it’s providing $1.5 million in funding to study the efficacy of MDMA-assisted therapy for veterans with PTSD and alcohol use disorder (AUD).
Last year, VA’s Yehuda also touted an initial study the agency funded that produced “stunning and robust results” from its first-ever clinical trial into MDMA therapy.
Shereef Enahal, the former VA under secretary for health who was appointed by Trump to lead HHS in January said it was “very encouraging”, that Trump had chosen Kennedy as his HHS leader and that Kennedy supported reform of psychedelics. And he hoped to work with him on the issue if he stayed on for the next administration, but that didn’t pan out.
Photos courtesy Flickr/Scamperdale