HB26-1325 would create a state-supported ibogaine research program to study addiction and PTSD treatment, including for veterans. One provision stands out: a requirement that participating organizations create benefit-sharing plans with Indigenous communities connected to the medicine’s origins.
Colorado has spent the last several years building one of the most ambitious natural medicine policy frameworks in the United States. Proposition 122, passed in 2022, created a regulated system for psilocybin services and decriminalized several plant medicines.
Now lawmakers are exploring whether ibogaine could enter that broader ecosystem through a research pathway.
For advocates of psychedelic reform, the question is not only whether research should proceed, but how access can expand responsibly while reducing the harms created by prohibition.
House Bill 26-1325, introduced March 6, 2026 by Representatives Jarvis Caldwell and Lisa Feret and Senator Matt Ball, proposes a state-supported ibogaine research pilot program within the Colorado Behavioral Health Administration (BHA).
The bill would allow the state to support clinical research into ibogaine’s potential for treating substance use disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental health conditions.
It would also require participating research sites to create benefit-sharing plans with Indigenous communities historically connected to the medicine.
Those requirements raise broader questions about how ibogaine research will develop in the United States, including how the medicine is sourced and how communities connected to its cultural origins are included in the benefits of research and commercialization.
What the Bill Would Do
HB26-1325 does not legalize ibogaine. The compound remains a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law.
Instead, the bill creates a state framework to support research under federal authorization.
The Behavioral Health Administration would be allowed to approve up to five ibogaine research pilot sites. The agency would also assist those sites in navigating the FDA’s Investigational New Drug (IND) process and coordinate with federal regulators, including the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Funding would come through gifts, grants, and donations rather than direct state appropriations. Those funds would be placed into a newly created Ibogaine Research Pilot Program Cash Fund, which could provide grants to participating sites.
The bill also proposes integrating ibogaine into Colorado’s broader natural medicine regulatory structure. This includes semi-synthetic ibogaine produced from compounds derived from Tabernanthe iboga or Voacanga africana.
In addition, the legislation extends liability protections to facilitators providing natural medicine services, provided any harm was not the result of intentional misconduct or gross negligence.
Why Veterans Are Central to the Proposal
The bill’s legislative declaration places strong emphasis on veterans’ mental health.
It states that “the mental health and well-being of veterans is a priority of the general assembly,” and references emerging research suggesting ibogaine may help treat severe service-related PTSD and other mental health conditions related to combat deployments.
This framing reflects a broader trend in psychedelic policy debates. Ibogaine has drawn attention partly because of reports from veterans who traveled to clinics in Mexico seeking treatment for traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and opioid dependence.
One widely cited 2024 Stanford study reported significant reductions in disability, PTSD symptoms, depression, and suicidality among special operations veterans with predominantly mild traumatic brain injury who received ibogaine treatment in Mexico, where the compound is legal.
Positioning the policy discussion around veterans may also help build bipartisan support. Veteran health remains one of the few issues where drug policy debates sometimes cross party lines.
The Indigenous Benefit-Sharing Requirement
One section of HB26-1325 introduces a provision rarely seen in U.S. drug policy.
To qualify as an ibogaine research site, applicants must demonstrate intent to pursue federal regulatory approval and establish a plan to share benefits with Indigenous communities traditionally connected to iboga or ibogaine practices.
The bill goes further. Any future licensee seeking to cultivate, manufacture, test, distribute, or administer ibogaine in Colorado would be required to maintain such a plan developed in consultation with those communities.
The plan must also be publicly available upon request.
The provision responds to longstanding criticism in the psychedelic field. Plant medicines such as ayahuasca, peyote, and iboga remain part of living Indigenous traditions. As Western researchers and companies develop therapies and intellectual property around these substances, the communities that stewarded them often receive little direct benefit.
In the case of iboga, those traditions are most closely associated with Bwiti spiritual practice in Central Africa, particularly in Gabon and Cameroon.
HB26-1325 does not define what benefit-sharing must look like or how it will be evaluated. The requirement establishes the principle, but the details would likely emerge through rulemaking or future legislation.
One practical question sits beneath this requirement. Ibogaine originates from plants native to Central Africa, and neither Tabernanthe iboga nor Voacanga africana is cultivated commercially in the United States at scale. As Colorado explores ibogaine research, questions about sourcing, conservation, and supply chains will likely become part of the policy conversation.
The Sourcing Question Nobody’s Answering
Ibogaine does not come from Colorado. Tabernanthe iboga grows in the rainforests of Central Africa, especially in Gabon and Cameroon, where Bwiti practitioners have used it ceremonially for generations. Voacanga africana, another source plant mentioned in the bill, is also native to the region.
Neither plant is cultivated commercially in the United States at scale.
HB26-1325 authorizes research and administration of ibogaine, including semi-synthetic ibogaine derived from compounds found in those plants. The bill does not explain where Colorado’s pilot research sites would obtain the source material.
The supply chain remains an open question.
Global demand for iboga root bark has grown as interest in ibogaine therapy has risen. Conservationists and researchers have raised concerns about overharvesting of Tabernanthe iboga in Central Africa.
Gabon designated the plant a protected national resource in 2019 and has taken steps to restrict exports of raw plant material. As a result, legal sourcing of iboga-derived compounds is already difficult and tightly regulated.
The issue also intersects with the bill’s Indigenous benefit-sharing requirement. If research programs in the United States rely on plant-derived compounds originating in Gabon while those same communities are expected to participate in benefit-sharing arrangements, the supply chain itself becomes an ethical question.
How plant material is sourced, cultivated, or synthesized may determine whether benefit-sharing provisions have real impact.
HB26-1325 opens the door to ibogaine research in Colorado. How that plant material is sourced will shape the debate about sustainability, Indigenous participation, and the ethics of psychedelic medicine.
What Happens Next
The bill has been assigned to the Colorado House Health and Human Services Committee. It must pass committee review, the full House, the Senate, and receive the governor’s signature before becoming law.
Importantly, the federal constraint is narrower than it might appear. Colorado can build essentially the entire program infrastructure — the cash fund, the rulemaking, the site selection process, the advisory board reforms, the liability protections — without Washington’s permission. What the bill cannot do is authorize the actual administration of ibogaine to patients. That one step is explicitly contingent on federal approval, whether through the FDA’s Investigational New Drug process, a federal research designation under 21 U.S.C. § 872, or broader federal reform.
There’s a further nuance worth noting. The bill’s federal coordination language — seeking DEA memoranda, pursuing FDA authorization, applying for federal research program status — uses “may” throughout, not “shall.” The BHA isn’t required to actively chase federal authorization. In practice, that work would likely fall to the pilot sites themselves, navigating the IND process on their own timelines.
The more accurate picture, then, is that Colorado is building a loaded gun and waiting for federal permission to fire it. The infrastructure can be ready. The sites can be selected. The rules can be written. The only thing that can’t happen until Washington moves is the thing that actually matters clinically: giving ibogaine to patients.
That may sound like a modest distinction. But for advocates, researchers, and potential pilot sites, it means the work can start now — and that Colorado will be positioned to move quickly when the federal landscape shifts.
The full text of HB26-1325 is available through the Colorado General Assembly website.
