Going to Any Lengths –
April 11, 2018 – As America’s opioid and heroin crisis rages, some struggling with addiction are turning to a drug illegal in the US. Jonathan Levinson went to one clinic offering the treatment in Mexico. At the end of a dead end street in a town near the US-Mexico border, Emily Albert is in the basement of a drug treatment clinic, hallucinating about her son as a heroin addict. She imagines him going through rehab and desperately trying to get clean. But Albert is the one with the addiction. She’s in the middle of a psychedelic treatment for opioid addiction. Through tears after the treatment is over, Albert recalls the vision of her son. “I could just tell that he was older and going through whatever I’m going through,” she explains. “It was like, basically, if I don’t do this then he’s going to have to.” Albert is among a growing number of opioid addicts from the US going to clinics in Mexico to get treated with a psychedelic drug called ibogaine.
