Ibogaine & Basketball: 5 Questions for iboga entrepreneur Stéphane Lasme

A former NBA player from Gabon discusses his hopes for iboga in his home country and beyond.

Stéphane Lasme was born in Port-Gentil, the second-largest city in the west African country of Gabon. Starting when he was around eleven, Lasme would travel six hours by bus from the city to his family’s village every summer. In the village, he would help the elders prepare for the rainy season by gathering wood, water, and food. He also helped them plant and harvest cassava. The days were long and filled with hard work. His elders gave Lasme a small bit of bark from the iboga tree to chew on, which helped him focus and not get hungry. Tabernanthe iboga, a small tree native to Central Africa, has roots and bark that have been traditionally used by people in the region for their psychoactive properties. As Lasme grew older, he participated in traditional ceremonies with iboga.

In 2003, Lasme moved to the United States, where he went to the University of Massachusetts Amherst on a basketball scholarship. Lasme was drafted by the NBA’s Golden State Warriors in 2007 and also played for the Miami Heat before embarking on a basketball career in Europe. He played in Serbia, Greece, Spain, Turkey, and other countries. Lasme was the first player from Gabon to receive a Division I basketball scholarship, the first to be drafted by the NBA, and the first to play professionally in Europe. 

About eight years ago, Lasme, who now lives in Massachusetts, became an investor and business operator in the cannabis space. He eventually realized that he could combine that experience with his personal experiences with the iboga plant. Today, Lasme is a co-founder and managing director at Stedde Capital, a private investment platform focused on sports, plant medicine, and African opportunities. Stedde is currently working to build an iboga processing lab and treatment center in Port-Gentil. The Microdose spoke with Lasme about his hopes for iboga in Gabon and beyond. 

Iboga is a central part of Bwiti, which is an Indigenous spiritual tradition in Central Africa. It’s been estimated that around 5% of Gabon’s population actively practices Bwiti, while more informal use of iboga is much more common. But in the rest of the world, the iboga plant is not widely known or used. What has your relationship with iboga been like since you moved away from Gabon? 

One thing is to understand that in Gabon, the iboga tree is the central part of our cultural, traditional, and spiritual lives. A lot more people are involved in a traditional way of life there; it's just part of who we are. 

Once I graduated from high school and moved to the States, all that stuff kind of went away because I was so focused on just adapting to the culture, basketball, and getting my degree. But I think about 2014 or 2015, while I was playing in Europe, I was going through some regular mental issues. I was a professional athlete in Europe, the only one from Gabon who's out there, and it's my first time playing professional basketball. So as I'm going through my career, there's ups and downs. 

Around that time, I went to Gabon and was talking to a friend about what it is really like to play professional sports as an African player. And that friend mentioned to me that sometimes you have to remember where you're from and remember that we have the iboga plant. He said, ‘You’re from Gabon, so when you have mental issues or you're struggling in life, you should just take a pinch of it and put it under your tongue before you go to sleep and in your dreams you will get to talk to your ancestors and it will help you.’ And so that was the second stage in my life where I kind of got recognition of the plant. And from that point on, when I need to just get back in touch with myself, like where I'm from, I will take a pinch before I go to sleep. I felt it really worked out for me. 

The current legal landscape for iboga and ibogaine varies by country. In the U.S., it was banned in 1970 under the Controlled Substances Act. There seems to be a growing interest in working with iboga now globally for research studies and in treatment centers in some countries where it is still legal. And much of the iboga used around the world is harvested illegally from Gabon. But Gabon recently came to an agreement to test small-scale, fair trade iboga exports. Do you think that as its popularity grows, there is a danger that it may be exploited? 

A lot of people understand how this plant can help and are trying to get access to it by any means necessary. Gabon as a country has laws in place to protect the plant. So to go through the process of exporting it from Gabon is a long process. But me being from Gabon, I might have a better chance to do it than someone coming from outside of Gabon. But because it's also part of plant medicine in our country, there’s a lot of secretive stuff around it, so there’s information that cannot just be carelessly given out. So we also have to respect that aspect of things. 

The way I view it is there's only one way to do it the right way. And this is what we are trying to accomplish. You can see who wants to do it the right way and who's there to make a quick buck. It’s kind of easy to see. Our business is for profit so we have to think about the investors, but also we want to be mindful of the Gabon culture. We have to be mindful of the cultivators who spend years learning about the plant. So being mindful of the Nagoya protocol, for example, is something that we do.  

You want to build infrastructure in Gabon to support traditional plant cultivators and you also mentioned the Nagoya Protocol, which is a part of the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity. The Nagoya Protocol is meant to protect Indigenous resources and knowledge. In the U.S. and elsewhere, we’ve seen plant medicines like ayahuasca and peyote being appropriated or exploited in various ways. Can you explain what your company is doing in Gabon to make sure that iboga continues to benefit the local community and remain sustainable, even as its use expands globally? 

We’re working with the government and local groups to build partnerships with farmers to help them grow the plants and provide them resources. We also want to help those farmers distribute the inventory in the right way. Until we finish building the lab in Port-Gentil, that means exporting the plant outside of Gabon to people who are able to extract the ibogaine alkaloid from the raw crushed plant. The lab is in the buildout phase. We’re trying to help people who are doing research to have access to inventory from Gabon in the most meaningful way, while respecting the law, respecting the Nagoya Protocol, and also by respecting the local laws where the plant is going to be sent to. 

One thing we are setting up now is a mechanism to be able to replant trees as we are selling the inventory. The iboga tree takes two to four years to come to maturity, so the replanting schedule has to be on point and you want to have the natural and the right way to do it. One tree can save one person. So the more trees we can plant, the greater chance we have to save people. So through that lens, everything we do, the hope is that we can plant a tree for every person that needs help. So we’re trying to set up this mechanism and get ahead of the curve in terms of trying to not get to a place where we cannot find the plant anymore. 

There is relatively little research on ibogaine, but a few studies have shown some potentially promising results. For example, there was a 2020 study in Mexico of U.S. Special Operations Forces veterans that showed ibogaine, together with another psychedelic substance called 5-MeO-DMT, led to reductions in PTSD symptoms. There's also a 2017 study that showed that ibogaine reduced withdrawal symptoms and opioid cravings. In your opinion, what role do you see for ibogaine in PTSD treatment, addiction therapy, or treating other mental health issues? 

The iboga tree is one of the most promising things out there in terms of mental health. The big thing right now, the low hanging fruit, is the fact that ibogaine has anti-addictive properties. This is what I tell people. Imagine having a plant that you consume, so it's all natural. You have to go through a flood dose to get to a result right away. After the flood dose, you go through all your repressed memories and, in a compassionate manner to yourself, see what you've done in your past. And at the same time, you reset whatever addiction that you have right after the flood dose. You don’t feel the addiction anymore and there are no withdrawal symptoms. 

I can appreciate what people are trying to do in the synthetic iboga space, but I'm focusing on a niche where you use something natural to solve something that’s been created by people. 

(Editor’s note: While ibogaine has shown some promise in the treatment of addiction, studies have also shown ibogaine to be associated with various types of cardiac risks.) 

As the world becomes more and more aware of ibogaine, many countries and communities are looking into ibogaine. For example, the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission is looking into allocating $42 million for ibogaine research. Mexico has some ibogaine treatment centers. Why is it important for you to do this work in Gabon? 

I want to make Gabon the center of this project. I think in Gabon, as a culture, we have already discovered the potential of the plant. And it's probably the right time for us Gabon people to be out there and teach people how to better use this plant that can help the rest of the world. And this is why my main focus is building the infrastructure there to be able to manufacture, study, and treat people using the plant. 

We’re really trying to build something great in Gabon from Gabon. There's a history in Africa of having raw material of high value, but all the manufacturing and use is happening outside of Africa. I think this is a great project because you get to bring the technology, the know-how that was discovered outside of Africa, to Central Africa and transform things on the ground. There is no other lab of this sort that is built or is trying to get built in the Central Africa region, so we are truly bringing in a solution that can help people create jobs, where there is actually reciprocity in the process. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.