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Texas Lawmakers approve a new Ibogaine bill, which gives Texas a stake in the commercial rights to psychedelic intellectual properties.

Texas’ legislature passed a law that creates a research consortium backed by the state to test ibogaine for use as a treatment of substance abuse disorders and mental illnesses. The goal is to develop a drug approved by U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

According to the bill, the state retains a commercial stake in all intellectual property generated during drug-development clinical trials. The goal is to make Texas the center for biomedical research and development, as well as treatment, manufacture, and distribution of ibogaine. State revenue from the intellectual property generated would be used to support veterans’ programs.

Over the weekend, both House and Senate lawmakers approved the conference committee version, SB 2308 which will now be sent to the governor.

Rather than create a state grant program to support research on the psychedelic, as previous forms of the bill would have done, the compromise version would establish a “consortium”—including an institution of higher education, a hospital and a drug developer—to develop and test ibogaine drugs in an effort to secure FDA approval.

The educational institution would serve as the consortium’s leader, representing the group to the state Health and Human Services  Commission (HHSC) and handling administrative functions. The educational institution would also be required to submit “a request and proposal for funding for the consortium in order to conduct ibogaine clinical trials according this chapter.”

Along with the legislation’s goal of winning FDA approval as a clinical treatment, the bill says it also seeks “a breakthrough therapy designation for ibogaine”—a designation FDA gives to emerging treatment options that haven’t yet secured agency approval to treat a particular condition.

Reformers applaud the passage of this proposal by lawmakers. Bryan Hubbard said that the American Ibogaine Initiative executive director and architect of the legislation, Bryan Hubbard “had to give all of them an A.”

In an interview with MEDCAN24 on Monday, he stated that he believed that the model could be used by other states who wish to copy it. He thanked in particular his sponsors Senator Tan Parker (R), Rep. Cody Harris(R), House Speaker Dustin Burroughs(R), and Lt. Governor. Dan Patrick (R) is Senate president.

Hubbard stated that without the vision and courage of these four people, nothing would have been possible. “I am eternally grateful to Texas for making it, according to my opinion, one of greatest achievements in the American psychedelic movements history.”

According to a report by the conference committee for SB 1, a large state budget bill, the program will be funded with $50 million from the general state fund. This money would then go to HHSC to pay for the drug trials.

Last week, members of the bipartisan conference committee that was formed to study the legislation on ibogaine submitted their final report. Both chambers then approved the bill.

Next, the bill will be sent to Governor Greg Abbott (R), who Hubbard said is expected to sign it into law. Hubbard stated that Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, is expected to be signing it into law.

The final proposal passed the Senate on a 26–5 vote and the House 134–4 vote.

Parker, who was the lead sponsor of the bill, made it clear that, before the Senate approved this agreement, the version from the conference committee would allocate state funds to ibogaine-related research and establish a strategy for FDA approval. The FDA would accept private gifts, donations and grants.

Parker explains that at first, there was no funding allocated by the state for the initiative. Parker explained that the funding situation has since changed. It is therefore critical to develop comprehensive and clear regulatory guidelines.

According to a fiscal note in the final conference bill, HHSC must appropriate funds “to finance the consortium’s clinical trials.” But the costs of this funding are unknown for the time being.

The analysis states that the revenue derived from intellectual properties resulting from research and drug development is “indeterminate” and will depend on drug trials.

Texas general fund would get state revenues, with 25 percent of that going to “programs which assist veterans here in Texas”.

Rep. Greg Bonnen said before the House vote that the state had negotiated a royalty rate of at least 20%.

The conference committee’s report should be approved, he said, urging his colleagues to approve the bill.

Hubbard of the American Ibogaine Initiative said he believed the state’s interest in the intellectual property created by the research would ensure Texans “a perpetual return” on their investment.

He said, “I believe that most Americans have enough public money going to private companies with no return for taxpayers.” “With the way in which Texas has set this project up, Texas taxpayers are going to be fully vested partners in this endeavor, and the people of Texas will see—if we are successful—perpetual return on their investment that will hopefully be used to assure universal treatment access through a top-notch, ibogaine-based treatment and recovery system as time and circumstances evolve.”

Because the conference committee went outside its jurisdiction in adding new provisions to the bill—by establishing the new consortium, for one—both chambers additionally had to approve resolutions allowing the panel’s actions to proceed.


MEDCAN24 tracks hundreds of marijuana, psychedelics, and drug policy legislation in state legislatures this year. Patreon members who pledge at least $25 per month get full access to all of our maps, charts, and hearing schedules.


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Harris claimed that “ibogaine” is not just another drug earlier this month.

It’s like a whisper of salvation in just one pill, he added. The drug can calm cravings, which are what binds people into addictions and heal the broken pieces that have been left behind by trauma.

Harris also added that one million Texans suffer from opioid use disorder. Harris added that “numerous more” carry silent burdens such as depression, anxiety and [traumatic brain injury]. Ibogaine might be their miracle.”

An earlier analysis of the legislation said that opioid use disorder (OUD) “continues to be one of the most insidious threats to public health of our time, devastating individuals, families, and communities across Texas and our nation,” and “current treatment options are often unsuccessful in treating OUD and lives are lost as a result.”

Hubbard pointed out that the Texas plan was similar to a Kentucky ibogaine proposal from a few year ago that he helped develop. This bill was intended to distribute at least 42 million dollars in funding towards research on ibogaine as a potential treatment for opioid addiction.

In late 2023, the effort failed after the new Kentucky attorney general, replacing Hubbard who had been serving at the time as the chair of Kentucky Opiod Commission with a former Drug Enforcement Administration official (DEA), replaced Hubbard.

The Ohio plan was a close copy of the one that advocates tried last year.

Hubbard explained that the legislation you are seeing is Kentucky’s plan, implemented by Texas. “In terms of the consortium…the way they’ve set it up creates a collaboration framework that I have always envisaged occurring at the backend.”

When this program was created for Kentucky I thought that we’d essentially be sending out an RFP [request for proposals] Send out an RFP to a potential trial site and pick the most suitable. He explained that the goal was to match the drug developers with the trial scientists on the other end.

Hubbard added, “In Texas this will be a collaborative partnership which must be created by the people who are interested in pursuing this opportunity.” There is an important role both for universities and private hospital, because each has something to offer.

He said that HHSC would retain control of the consortium. “This is necessary because we want to have the best possible drug developer, and the best combination of Texas trial sites, that can ensure that the trials are conducted safely, efficiently, and effectively.”

The Texas House, however, passed two bills last month that would have ensured a rapid access to psychedelic assisted therapy in case the FDA approved it. However, they failed to clear the Senate before the end of this session.

Recently, over the weekend, the legislature passed and sent to the Governor a bill that would significantly expand the medical marijuana program in the state.

Over the weekend, bicameral negotiators reached a compromise after the Senate passed the bill from Rep. Ken King. The amendments diluted the House’s original proposal. Each chamber then gave its final approval Sunday.

The final version of the bill—which cleared the House on a 138-1 vote and the Senate by a vote of 31-0—would expand the state’s list of medical cannabis qualifying conditions to include chronic pain, traumatic brain injury (TBI), Crohn’s disease and other inflammatory bowel diseases, while also allowing end-of-life patients in palliative or hospice care to use marijuana.

Lawmakers on Sunday passed a resolution adding Crohn’s disease and other inflammatory bowel diseases back into the bill as well, which Sen. Charles Perry (R) said on the floor were “inadvertently left out by the drafter late last night.”

According to the bill that is currently on its way to the Governor, registrations for patients would last up to a year. They could also receive as many refills (up to four) of the 90-day supply. The total amount of THC allowed in medical cannabis packaging, devices, and containers is 1 gram, but the maximum dose per package or container will be 10 mg.

Lawmakers also adopted resolutions on Sunday to clarify that a physician “may prescribe more than one package of low-THC cannabis to a patient in a 90-day period.”

The bill, if it becomes law, would expand Texas’s limited medical marijuana program that allows qualifying patients to access non-smoking cannabis products with no more than 0.5% THC dry weight.

This comes in the background of a highly contentious debate over another piece of legislation that was sent to Abbott last month to ban consumable hemp products containing any amount of THC, even though federal law permits hemp products containing up to 0.3 percent THC by dry weight.

Democrats are attacking the bill for being an assault on the right to personal freedom and have targeted Patrick, the lieutenant Governor, over his passion in promoting the ban.

Meanwhile in Texas, a House committee approved a Senate-passed bill last month that would prohibit cities from putting any citizen initiative on local ballots that would decriminalize marijuana or other controlled substances—as several localities have already done despite lawsuits from the state attorney general.

Under the proposal, state law would be amended to say that local entities “may not place an item on a ballot, including a municipal charter or charter amendment, that would provide that the local entity will not fully enforce” state drug laws.

While several courts have previously upheld local cannabis decriminalization laws, an appellate court comprised of three conservative justices appointed by the governor has recently pushed back against two of those rulings, siding with the state in its legal challenge to the marijuana policy in Austin and San Marcos.

Despite the ongoing litigation and advancement of the House and Senate bills, Texas activists have their targets set on yet another city, Kyle, where they hope put an initiative before voters to enact local marijuana reform at the ballot this coming November.

A recent poll found that four in five Texas voters want to see marijuana legalized in some form, and most also want to see regulations around cannabis relaxed.

Trump wants to delete state medical marijuana protections from budget while continuing to block cannabis sales legalization in D.C.

Photos courtesy Flickr/Scamperdale

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