http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/us/17lotsof.html
By DENNIS HEVESI
Published: February 17, 2010
Howard Lotsof was 19, addicted to heroin and searching for a new high
in 1962 when he swallowed a bitter-tasting white powder taken from an
exotic West African shrub.
"The next thing I knew," he told The New York Times in 1994, "I was straight."
The substance was ibogaine, an extract of Tabernanthe iboga, a
perennial rain-forest plant found primarily in Gabon. In the Bwiti
religion it is used in puberty initiation rites, inducing a powerful
altered state for at least 48 hours during which young people are
said to come into contact with a universal ancestor.
By Mr. Lotsof's account, when he and six friends who were also
addicted tried ibogaine, five of them immediately quit, saying their
desire for heroin had been extinguished.
It was the start of a lifelong campaign for Mr. Lotsof. And now
thousands of former addicts around the world and some scientists
contend that ibogaine should be scientifically tested for its ability
to halt heroin and cocaine cravings and even end addiction. Ibogaine
is used in drug treatment clinics in many countries, but is banned in
the United States.
Mr. Lotsof, who was 66, died on Jan. 31 at a hospital near his home
on Staten Island. The cause was liver cancer, his wife, Norma said.
Virtually from that day 48 years ago when he first tried ibogaine,
Mr. Lotsof became perhaps its leading advocate, lobbying public
officials, pharmaceutical companies and independent researchers to
investigate its efficacy. In the mid-1980s, he persuaded a Belgian
company to manufacture ibogaine in capsule form and begin offering it
to addicts in the Netherlands.
By then he had started the Dora Weiner Foundation, named for his
grandmother, to develop ibogaine as a medication, to disseminate
information about chemical dependence and to refer people to
treatment. Mr. Lotsof ran the foundation.
In 1986 he received a patent for the use of ibogaine as a remedy for
heroin and cocaine addiction. Five years later, he began working with
Jan Bastiaans, a Dutch psychiatrist who had gained renown by using
LSD therapy for Holocaust survivors.
They treated 30 addicts from around the world, two-thirds of whom
stopped using drugs for periods ranging from four months to four
years. With 75 percent of addicts typically relapsing within six
months of conventional care, the results spurred scientific interest.
"His great achievement," said Kenneth Alper, an associate professor
of psychiatry and neurology at the New York University School of
Medicine, "was in inducing the National Institute on Drug Abuse to
undertake a research project on ibogaine that produced scores of
peer-reviewed publications and paved the way for F.D.A. approval of a
clinical trial."
The Food and Drug Administration did approve the trial, Dr. Alper
said, but it was never completed because of contractual disputes and
lack of financing. Ibogaine remains banned by the federal government.
"In the uncontrolled environments in which ibogaine is typically
used, clinics or nonmedical settings," Dr. Alper said, "the
observations indicate that there is a resolution of withdrawal,
meaning the addict is detoxified and no longer has withdrawal
symptoms and is no longer physically dependent." Scientifically
controlled testing is needed, he said.
Herbert D. Kleber, director of the division on substance abuse at the
New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University, said he
was skeptical about the efficacy of ibogaine in treating substance
abusers, including those addicted to opium-based drugs like heroin.
"At various times ibogaine has been proposed to treat opioid
withdrawal as a cure for opioid dependence and as a cure for cocaine
dependence," Dr. Kleber said. "But there is a lack of controlled
scientific studies to back those beliefs.
"A number of deaths have been associated with its use, especially to
treat opioid withdrawal and dependence," Dr. Kleber continued. "I
therefore do not feel it is something that should be used in the
absence of such evidence."
Howard Stephen Lotsof (pronounced LOTS-uv) was born in the Bronx on
March 1, 1943, the only child of Abner and Lillian Weiner Lotsof.
Besides his wife, the former Norma Alexander, he is survived by two
sisters, Rosalie Falato and Holly Weiland.
Mr. Lotsof, who dropped out of Fairleigh Dickinson University in the
1960s, graduated from N.Y.U. in 1976. Over the years he wrote or
co-wrote scientific papers on ibogaine that were published in
respected academic journals, including The Journal of
Ethnopharmacology and The American Journal on Addictions.
"These accomplishments are all the more extraordinary," Dr. Alper
said, "in view of the fact that Mr. Lotsof, a graduate of New York
University who majored in film, was without a doctoral-level degree."
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