Rick Perry & W. Bryan Hubbard: Rick Perry is the former Republican Governor of Texas and U.S. Secretary of Energy, now an outspoken advocate for plant-medicine treatment of veterans. W. Bryan Hubbard is a Kentucky attorney who chaired the state's Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission and championed ibogaine research funding.
What this episode covers
Rick Perry and Bryan Hubbard explain how a hardline conservative governor and a Kentucky lawyer both became champions of ibogaine, a Schedule I psychoactive plant medicine. They walk through the science: a Stanford study led by Dr. Nolan Williams showed dramatic reversal of PTSD symptoms and measurable brain regeneration in 30 veterans, and ibogaine's near-unique ability to reset the brain's dopamine/serotonin production and end opioid and meth dependence. Hubbard recounts his years inside Kentucky's disability, child-support, and opioid systems, and how he nearly secured $42 million for ibogaine trials before being forced to resign. The conversation turns to Perry's push to pass a Texas Ibogaine Initiative, the cardiac risks and safety protocols, and the spiritual dimension both men say the medicine delivers.
No purchasable items were genuinely recommended in this episode.
Big reveals from this episode
- Perry, a self-described 'conservative right-wing knuckle-dragging Republican,' admits he became a public ibogaine 'spokesperson' and 'Johnny Appleseed.'
- Stanford study of 30 veterans found 88% had zero PTSD symptoms six months after ibogaine treatment, with effects holding past a year.
- Brain scans showed an average 1.5-year reversal of brain age, with the top five veterans reversing nearly 5 years.
- Hubbard claims ibogaine resolves physiological opioid dependence in 36-48 hours versus the brain's normal 18-month recovery.
- Activist Juliana Mulligan went into cardiac arrest six times from an overdose at a bad Guatemalan clinic, then woke up feeling the best of her life.
- Hubbard says he was 'ambushed' and forced to resign on the cusp of approving $42 million for Kentucky ibogaine trials after a 2023 election.
- Hubbard reveals he and his wife took ibogaine in Tijuana; she came off Celexa after 21 years and hasn't taken it since.
- The men trace ibogaine's bad reputation to Hunter S. Thompson, who invented a fake rumor that candidate Ed Muskie was addicted to it.
Worth remembering
- Ibogaine has no recreational use and no addiction potential, yet sits on Schedule I alongside drugs with no medical purpose.
- Perry argues Nixon swept these compounds onto Schedule I in the early '70s largely to target political enemies.
- Opioids spike dopamine to 925 ng/dL and meth to 1100 ng/dL, versus the body's natural max of about 125 ng/dL.
- Hubbard claims ibogaine is the only known substance that successfully treats methamphetamine dependence.
- Ibogaine carries serious cardiac risk (prolonged QT / torsades) but clinics mitigate it with co-administered magnesium.
- A Parkinson's patient who was bedfast reportedly regained the ability to walk and ride a bike after a low-dose ibogaine protocol in Switzerland.
- George Strait gives away a veteran's home from the Military Heroes Support Foundation at every one of his concerts.
- Kentucky's disability-program enrollment grew 249% from 1980-2015 while population grew only 20%.
- Suboxone's base compound was created with a $2.5 million federal giveaway, after which industry reaped 100% of the returns.
- Perry got the wife of a guest to safely come off her SSRI for five days using a supplementation regimen before treatment.