Republican lawmaker wants Kentucky to take chance on psychedelic to treat opioid addiction

FRANKFORT, Ky. (FOX 56) — A Republican lawmaker will be filing a bill next year to explore a new but controversial treatment for opioid addiction.

“We’ve been dealing with the same clinical model over and over for decades. It ain’t working, folks,” Sen. Donald Douglas (R-Nicholasville) said Wednesday before a meeting of the Interim Joint Committee on Health Services.

While the Governor’s 2024 Overdose Fatality Report did chart a 30% decline in overdose deaths, the numbers are still concerning. According to the report, just over 1400 Kentuckians died from an overdose, and almost 160,000 received addiction services paid for by the state or Medicaid.

“Ibogaine treats treatment-resistant depression. And by that, I mean depression that has failed all medication, all therapy, everything,” Dr. Jean Loftus with Americans for Ibogaine told lawmakers at the hearing.

Ibogaine is a psychedelic derived from an African shrub and is currently illegal in the United States, classified as a Schedule I drug. Douglas, an anesthesiologist by trade, is hoping to convince his colleagues to greenlight a bill in 2026, clearing the way to start researching ibogaine to treat opioid addiction.

“I got up the next day with no withdrawal. No cravings for drugs or cigarettes. No desire to anxiously bite my nails, and feeling like an enormous burden had been removed for me,” Jessica Blackburn-Allen said, sharing her testimony with lawmakers. At 19, she had become addicted to daily oxycodone or heroin use and exhausted traditional treatments with no effect. She credits the ibogaine treatment she had to seek out in Mexico for keeping her sober the last ten years.

“It’s important to understand that ibogaine is not a cure for addiction. It’s an interrupter. It interrupts acute withdrawal. It interrupts host addiction withdrawal syndrome, and it interrupts craving,” Loftus said. The drug isn’t without extreme but temporary side effects, including hallucinations and mobility issues.

Douglas filed a similar bill that did not receive a hearing last session, and a proposal for ibogaine research was briefly explored under previous Attorney General Daniel Cameron, spearheaded by Bryan Hubbard, who chaired the state’s Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission. Hubbard found recent success in Texas; earlier this summer, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill investing $50 million in clinical trials for ibogaine.

Wednesday’s hearing gives Douglas an opening to push the issue further in 2026.