Chemists tame shamanic addiction treatment

US chemists have modified the active substance in a sometimes deadly traditional African medicine to make a safer potential treatment for addiction. Ibogaine, an alkaloid from the iboga tree, gives users visions and can cause heart attacks – but has also been reported as useful in overcoming addiction. Now, a team led by David Olson from University of California, Davis, have used medicinal chemistry to develop a compound that they call tabernanthalog that suppresses unwanted effects.