Convention on Psychotropic Substances

Because Ibogaine is in a bizarre international legal gray area.

The United Nations manages global drug control through three main treaties, primarily the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances.

Right, the global framework.

Ibogaine is remarkably absent from the schedules of all of them.

The Controlled Substances Act was introduced in 1970, outlawing psilocybin, LSD, mescaline, and dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, in the United States.

The UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances in 1971 extended this classification internationally, forcing the recreational and academic exploration of these substances into hibernation for several decades.

The legal and moral crackdown on these substances placed a taboo on their use that continues today across most of the world.

And it was no different in South Africa, where I put Huxley's book out of my mind.