Texas governor among those to call for expanded access to ibogaine, said to help with treating veterans with PTSD

For half a century, psychedelics largely belonged to the cultural left: anti-war, anti-capitalist, suspicious of the church and state. Now, one of the most politically consequential psychedelic drugs in the US – ibogaine – is being championed by evangelical Christians, Republican governors, military veterans, and big tech billionaires.

Many of them see ibogaine, an intense psychedelic derived from a central African rootbark, as a divine technology. In fact, some pointedly do not refer to it as a psychedelic, given the apparent baggage of the term in some circles.

This story was amended on 26 December 2025 to clarify that Americans for Ibogaine was not formed with, and has never received, funding from Rex Elsass.