Traditional use
Iboga precedes contemporary treatment frameworks
Accounts of iboga commonly describe its place in Bwiti religious and cultural practice in Gabon and neighboring areas. That history matters when public discussion compresses a culturally rooted plant into a cross-border service category. Regulation in Mexico or the United States does not erase those earlier contexts.
1967
U.S. federal scheduling places ibogaine in Schedule I
In the United States, ibogaine is listed in Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act. The DEA controlled-substances schedules provide the federal classification context that continues to shape possession, distribution, research, and cross-border return questions.
1990s–2000s
Interest, research discussion, and travel patterns expand
As public interest in ibogaine-related care grew, some people began looking outside the United States. The legal status of a substance on one side of a border does not itself establish the standards, licensing, emergency planning, or oversight of a destination on the other side.