Iboga is the whole root bark of Tabernanthe iboga, used in the Bwiti tradition as a sacrament. Total alkaloid extract concentrates that root bark. Ibogaine HCl is a single isolated alkaloid, most often semi-synthesised from Voacanga africana rather than from iboga at all.
"Ibogaine" has become the word people use for all of this. It's the term in the news coverage, in most of the research literature, and on nearly every clinic website — so it has quietly become the generic name for anything connected to the iboga plant.
That creates a real problem for anyone trying to compare their options. The four things the word gets applied to are not the same substance. They are not made the same way, they do not contain the same compounds, and in one case the material does not come from iboga at all. Someone weighing up providers is often comparing four different things while being told they are one.
The root bark of Tabernanthe iboga, shredded and taken as the plant itself.
Alkaloids
All of them, in natural ratio
Source plant
Tabernanthe iboga
Typical setting
Bwiti ceremony
Root bark concentrated into a powder. The full alkaloid range, in far less volume.
Alkaloids
Most retained, ratios shift
Source plant
Tabernanthe iboga
Typical setting
Detox contexts
Total alkaloid extract refined further. Ibogaine dominant, minor alkaloids largely stripped.
Alkaloids
Few retained, ibogaine dominant
Source plant
Tabernanthe iboga
Typical setting
Clinical detox
A single alkaloid, isolated. Most clinical supply is semi-synthesised, not extracted from iboga.
Alkaloids
One — ibogaine only
Source plant
Usually Voacanga africana
Typical setting
Clinical detox
Read across, this is one process rather than four unrelated products. Each step removes something.
Total alkaloid extract takes away the plant matter and concentrates what remains. Purified total alkaloid strips out most of the minor alkaloids. Isolated ibogaine removes everything but a single molecule — and at that point the material is usually being built up from a different plant rather than reduced down from iboga.
What gets removed is the whole question, and it is most of what follows on this page.
Extraction is usually described as purification — taking out what you don't need to get at what works. That framing assumes we already know which part works.
With iboga, that assumption doesn't hold. Root bark contains more than thirty indole alkaloids besides ibogaine, and only one of them has been studied in any depth. The others are not impurities. They are the rest of the plant, present in ratios that took the tree decades to arrive at.¹
Whole root bark
Nothing removed
Total alkaloid
Plant fibre removed
Purified total alkaloid
Minor alkaloids stripped
Ibogaine HCl
One molecule
Proportions are illustrative.
Each step trades range for concentration. Total alkaloid extract makes the material far easier to take — the reason it exists at all, and the reason it has a genuine place in detox, where someone in acute withdrawal often cannot keep down the volume that root bark requires. Purified total alkaloid goes further and narrows what's left. Isolated ibogaine keeps one molecule.
Whether that trade is worth making depends on what you think the other alkaloids do. That question has a research literature behind it, and we cover it further down this page.
There is also something the diagram cannot show. In the Bwiti tradition the medicine is not only a set of compounds, and the spirit of Iboga is not something that survives extraction. That is a claim about what the plant is, not a claim about chemistry, and it is the reason we work with root bark rather than a more convenient form of it.
| Whole root bark | Total alkaloid | Purified TA | Ibogaine HCl | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Shredded root bark | Concentrated powder | Refined powder | Single compound |
| How it's made | Harvested, dried, shredded | Solvent extraction | Further purification | Usually semi-synthesis |
| Source plant | Tabernanthe iboga | Tabernanthe iboga | Tabernanthe iboga | Voacanga africana |
| Alkaloids present | Full range, natural ratio | Most, ratios shifted | Few, ibogaine dominant | One |
| Cardiac load | Lowest ibogaine exposure | Higher | Higher | Highest |
| Medical screening | Required | Required | Required | Required |
| Typical setting | Bwiti ceremony | Detox contexts | Clinical detox | Clinical detox |
| Tradition | Thousands of years | Modern | Modern | Modern |
| What we use | Yes | Detox only | No | No |