The new film, In Waves and War, premiered at the DOC NYC documentary film festival on November 21, 2024. The film examines the rigorous training and multiple combat deployments of U.S. Navy SEALs and what happens when they come home.

DOC NYC Festival Director Karen McMullen describes what awaits retiring SEALs at home: “PTSD, survivor’s guilt, traumatic brain injury, chronic pain, and depression.” What follows, however, is a surprising plot twist. The damaged SEALs seek out a psychedelic treatment in Mexico, and it works!

The treatment is ibogaine, derived from the root bark of the iboga tree found in central Africa. It has been used to treat addictions and mental health problems for decades, but it has toxic side effects that researchers are trying to isolate and remove.

A team of researchers affiliated with the University of Basel Psychiatric Clinics in Switzerland performed a systematic review in 2022 of the scientific literature involving the therapeutic use of ibogaine for the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment. The researchers summarize the results in unambiguous terms:

The published data suggest that ibogaine is an effective therapeutic intervention within the context of SUDs, reducing withdrawal symptoms and craving.

The researchers narrowed a field of 743 records down to 24 which were examined and compared. These involved randomized, controlled, double-blind trials, case series and retrospectives. Beyond the positive effects on substance use disorders (SUDs), researchers noted that data suggests “a beneficial impact on depressive and trauma-related psychological symptoms.”

They found one big caveat with ibogaine treatments: death! There were two fatalities among the 705 individuals covered by the 24 studies. These were due to “neurotoxic and cardiotoxic effects” attributed to the ibogaine treatment.

A similar systematic review, published in the journal Current Neuropharmacology in November 2023, restricted their search to studies of ibogaine used against SUDs. An analysis of 31 studies found “some efficacy” in the use of ibogaine to treat SUDs. However, the same caveat applies: “its cardiotoxicity and mortality are worrying.”

Back to the film, In Waves and War, which was reviewed by Dr. Lipi Roy for Forbes. She describes the treatment received in Mexico by the veterans:

All three SEALs travelled to Mexico and underwent five days of ibogaine treatment followed by 5-MeO-DMT… Each individual was monitored closely by staff, before, during and after the medications were administered. Afterwards, each SEAL felt that the psychedelics helped them. They felt uplifted, as if a dark cloud was lifted.

A similar movie debuted last year at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film Of Night and Light: The Story of Iboga and ibogaine documents the decades-long struggle to get ibogaine approved for use in the U.S. for both SUDs and mental health disorders such as PTSD and depression. We look forward to reporting on research to extract the beneficial properties of ibogaine and eliminate or greatly reduce its toxicity.

Written by Steve O’Keefe. First published December 9, 2024.

Sources:

“New Documentary Tackles Navy SEALs, PTSD, Addiction And Psychedelics,” Forbes, November 30, 2024.

“A systematic literature review of clinical trials and therapeutic applications of ibogaine,” Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, July 2022.

“Ibogaine/Noribogaine in the Treatment of Substance Use Disorders: A Systematic Review of the Current Literature,” Current Neuropharmacology, November 2023.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, used under Creative Commons license.