As Kentucky battles a deadly opioid crisis, some are looking at Ibogaine as a valuable weapon in that fight.

It's a psychedelic plant that's not FDA approved.

Kentucky's Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission is considering putting $42 million toward researching Ibogaine therapeutic uses.

Ibogaine was the topic yesterday at a conference in La Grange, Kentucky.

We are very well aware of what was happening with the commission here and to see Kentucky take the poll position, the leadership role to potentially allocate these funds in support of clinical research for ibogaine to us represented a seismic opportunity.

But we also recognize that there are a heck of a lot more people on the outside of the psychedelic movement that are on the inside, and that creates a massive education gap.

And so we are talking about communities that either know very little about psychedelics, they're possibly misinformed about psychedelics.

And we felt that there was a strong draw to help bring quality education to the community so that as the conversation around this vote and then the hopeful, successful vote down the road, that there would be an increase in the understanding of the community around what is ibogaine, what are psychedelics and how can it help.

So that's the role that we want to fill here in Kentucky.

Ibogaine has a very different profile.

The promises that a single administration can result in seemingly long term abstinence, or at least marked reduction in the amount of opioids that are being consumed.

So that's what is really intriguing to us, and that's why we want to you know, that's why we're interested in advancing this.

We wanted to bring people who might be far into other psychedelic conferences, people who are practicing therapists, individuals from the community representatives of churches, community groups, policy advocates, people who've worked on drug policy, harm reduction, and really bring this kind of content.

And I'm very happy to say, I think we've done a very good job bringing those diverse perspectives to this inaugural conference.

There's really two elements to these compounds.

One is they cause marked neuroplasticity.

They cause changes in the neurons.

You know, the things that fire within the brain.

They cause them to basically rapidly change their connections to other neurons.

That's the neuroplasticity element.

But they do that in the context of network disruption.

So there's alterations in how the different parts of the brain are firing, and that's manifest as a psychedelic effect.

Think of it as kind of a frozen snow globe.

You know, you thaw, you shake it up and then you freeze it again.

It's got a totally different configuration than it did at our PRIORE.

That's a theory.

And it is just that my interest is sort of two falls.

Number one, obviously I have an interest in Ibogaine and in a company that's developing, I began.

The other piece to it is I grew up here.

All right.

So that's an important element to it.

I grew up in Whitesburg, Kentucky.

And, you know, over time, I did see changes in that.

So I left a long time ago.

My parents stayed there for quite until about ten years ago, actually.

And when I go when I would go back to visit, there was just more of a pervasive sadness and a in a weird way that I felt because of all of the impacts of the opioid crisis there.

I don't think anyone can look at the current response to our mental health crisis, which includes our addiction crisis, and can sit here and tell you we're doing a good job solving the problem.

We're not.

So to me, this event and future conferences like this, we need to get to the individuals, not just the therapists, and not just medical and behavioral health professionals, but individuals who have seen loved ones who are suffer wrong and let them know there is hope, there are opportunities.

And this is how we try to get that groundswell so it can be safe, legal and accessible here in the U.S.. We'll bring you more life changing testimonials, but also some skepticism about ibogaine.

Next week on Kentucky Edition.