‘Epic victory for all humanity’: Trump signs executive order on new drug treatment reform

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to fasttrack psychedelic drug research to treat mental health disorders. He did this in the Oval Office on Friday alongside podcaster Joe Rogan, health secretary RFK Jr. and Americans for Iberane CEO Brian Hubbed.

[00:00:19]>> With this executive order, President Trump has delivered an epic victory for all humanity.

[00:00:30]I thank him for having the courage to make this happen and my mission brother Joe Rogan for having the spine to make the ask.

[00:00:42]Brian Hubbed joins us now. Brian, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Um, first of all, can you help explain to me and to all of us what I actually is? Of course, I understand it's a a plant-based psychoactive compound, but can you talk to us about what it is and how it can potentially be used to treat plenty of um mental health disorders, drug addictions, PTSD, uh etc. >> Ibagane is an alkaloid derived from African tree called the ibogga tree. It has been used for centuries in the cultural and spiritual traditions of the buidi culture in Gabon and the central Congo basin. It is referred to them they refer to it as the sacred will and it is seen as the vehicle through which an individual can essentially reach their soul and be in communion with their creator. In the late in the early 60s, a gentleman by the name of Howard Loff had been a long-term heroin addict. He came into contact with Imagine. He took it and he went through a very unpleasant physical experience, but one which ended up uh resolving his heroin addiction. Uh when he was on the other side, he didn't experience any withdrawal and he had no desire for heroin.

[00:02:01]>> It's incredibly fascinating.

[00:02:04]Just to put the counter argument to you, are there any concerns that this may be taken in an environment that's not controlled? And what do you say to the concerns that this may be harmful as opposed to healing?

[00:02:19]>> Well, those concerns are valid. Ivagane is a very serious medication. It comes with a very specific cardiac risk. If you take too much of it, it will stop your heart. This is not to be trifled with. It has no recreational or party use. And for the individual who takes it, they're going to feel terrible. If a state of semi paralysis for 12 hours accompanied by repeated rounds or throwing up is your idea of a party, you're going to have a blast because that's what almost everyone experiences with an ibang treatment. It is not fun.

[00:02:54]Uh it is a treatment often of last resort. It is not first line. It's for those who most other treatments have failed. It must be delivered within a clinically controlled medical setting by appropriately trained medical professionals who co-administer magnesium and keep continual cardiac monitoring in place to ensure that the heart falls out of rhythm. A cardiac stabilizer called atropene can be administered to place it back in perfect beat. uh no one should try to obtain or to take Ivagane treatment from any source online and they need to extremely careful research if they seek it uh in any of these clinics which happen to operate in South Africa in Mexico and Central America.

[00:03:37]>> What is the difference between Iberane and and other plant-based medicines?

[00:03:42]Excuse my ignorance. Um but there are a few out there. Can you just explain what the difference is?

[00:03:49]So when we refer to psychedelics broadly, we're talking about those that folks mostly understand. The magic mushroom or psilocybin, LSD, MA, and now Ibagane, as well as I was and measculine.

[00:04:01]>> It's pretty extraordinary that we're now at this moment with uh President Trump signing this executive order to fasttrack more research into this. Why do you think it's taken so long to get to this point in time? Do you have any thoughts around potentially being people or companies that that wouldn't want this research to go ahead?

[00:04:20]>> Oh gosh, this is a question that could take its own hour to answer, but I I will answer it as succinctly and linearly as I can. Let's passage to the 1970 uh controlled substances act which outlawed all of the psychedelics in the name of law, order, and maintaining the cohesion of society. This was the weaponization of law against uh the 1960s counterculture, frankly against African-Americans and others who were deemed to be off the mainline of society. Uh and uh the tool which has been used to create mass incarceration in the United States for what are for the most part nonviolent drug offenses.

[00:04:57]Uh the 1970s control substance act initiated the drug war. Drug war is its own business enterprise that takes a lot of money, spends a lot of money, and wants to continue to do so. Uh when we look at the past 30 years of American history, we can see that uh power itself has been the greatest criminal. And why do I say that? Uh the opioid epidemic is now in its 30th year in the United States. It is a premeditated and deliberately engineered humanitarian catastrophe that is the gravest that has played out in this country since the end of the Civil War. We've had the 2008 financial crisis which dispossessed millions of people from their ownership of the American dream and sent them the bill for their dispossession. We have 25 years of unremittent warfare which again have taken exponentially more service member lives here and home than have been lost on battlefield abroad. The sum total paid for the criminality of power has been 1.5 million dead Americans from alcohol-related disease, suicide and drug overdose. a figure in 10 years that exceeds all soldiers lost in war going back to July 4, 1776 when the nation declared its independence. We have a catastrophic mental and substance use crisis in the United States that is rooted in spiritual despair at scale. Spiritual despair created by the crimes perpetuated on American society from on high. It is my belief that President Trump responded to a gentleman who has had the thought and the courage in the form of Mr. Rogan to ask him to consider aligning the federal government around the creation of a medication that can heal the wounds that have been caused and inflicted by the decisions of power itself. He was genuinely responsive. And now as I sit here with you, we can say that federal prohibition of psychedelic medicine in the United States is over.

[00:06:56]And for that, no matter what one may think of President Trump, this is a tremendous humanitarian accomplishment that has the capacity if properly shephered to improve the human condition at scale globally. It's pretty extraordinary and I really enjoyed listening to Joe Rogan talk about his text message exchange with President Trump and just how quickly Donald Trump was willing to move on this. Can you share with us your experience from sitting down with Joe Rogan speaking about this um and and now we're at this position um where Donald Trump has signed an executive order to fasttrack research. It's pretty extraordinary. Did you think we would end up here?

[00:07:38]Well, I wasn't quite sure, but I knew that we were going to have to throw a hailmary pass. Uh, when Governor uh, former Texas Governor Rick Perry and I went in to sit down for our second interview on March the 31st. During the course of the interview, I expressed my opinion that it was going to take the president of the United States to direct the federal government to align with this opportunity in order to make it happen. Uh when the headphones came off and the camera was off, I said uh Governor Perry and I said, "We've got a favor to ask. Would you be willing to ask the president of the United States to have a meeting with me, meaning myself, you and Marcus Latril to discuss his willingness to move I gain through the federal government's drug development process. Uh Mr. Rogan said that he would reach out and keep us posted." Then from April 1st through April 17th, there was just an extraordinary chain of events that led to the signing ceremony that occurred on uh Saturday at 9:00 a.m. April 18th. And u it has been a monumental accomplishment, but the reality is the hard work really begins.

[00:08:46]>> Ironically, there's a quote attributed to President Clinton where he said that being president's a lot like walking across the walking through a cemetery.

[00:08:55]There's a lot of people below you who are not listening. Uh we have three behem four behemoth bureaucracies that are going to have to implement the president's orders. Those being the Food and Drug Administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Veterans Administration, and the US Justice Department. Uh bureaucracies are not known for being responsive or necessarily obedient to the directives that they receive from uh the chief executive officer. So, uh, the president's witches are going to have to be carried out and the president very well may need some help to ensure that that happens from both the inside and the outside. Uh, Mr. Rogan, myself, Governor Perry, and the rest of the psychedelic movement are ready to, uh, put our hands on the prospects for success, do everything we can to push it forward.

[00:09:43]>> Yeah, it's it's very interesting. I think a huge amount of credit should go to Donald Trump, Joe Rogan, yourself of course, and RFK Jr. for leading the Maha movement. What I like about it is that they seem to be opening to listening to the people. I think plenty um of Americans, people right around the world have been uh ignored for a very long time and I I feel like um there's actually people are actually getting listened to at the moment. What's the response been so far since Friday?

[00:10:15]It has been overwhelmingly positive and joyous. Uh I think public Poland reflected that there is about a critical threshold of 8020 support for the advancement of psychedelic research broadly >> and I would communications that I have uh received or any indication uh that lines up perfectly with what public sentiment is. It's rare that you can find unity opportunities within societies that appear to be as fractured as that of the United States. Uh but this is one of them. And uh I just hope that it can be faithfully served to achieve its highest and most intended purposes.

[00:10:54]>> What makes you so passionate about this?

[00:10:56]Why have you been fighting for this?

[00:11:00]>> This starts with me uh in my earliest memories as a human being. U my parents married when they were very young. and they came up in a poor coal mining environment in Virginia. Like a lot of young people, they thought love was their ticket to escape. By the time I came along, uh those dreams had ended and my first memories were of uh really of uh screaming and violence and chaos between my parents. I had two uh grade school educated coal mining grandfathers who took great interest in my life. They were men of great faith. And uh when I was old enough to understand language, each of them would spend as much time with me as they could. And before I would go home, uh they would each pull me aside, put me on their lap and look at me and say, "Papa," it's what I call my grandfather's papa. Uh papa loves you. And papa prays for you every day.

[00:11:53]Uh but more importantly, and you must never forget this, God loves you. God has a unique and special purpose to achieve with your life. And no matter how scared you are, no matter how bad it gets, don't ever forget what Papa's telling you. Know it. And it's going to God was going to see you through. If I had not had those beautiful men teach me that lesson all the way through my youth, if I were alive at all, it is highly likely that I would be in some dark hole wondering what someone like me who held jobs as I have healed was going to do to come and get me out. I believe that the source, the greatest source of human affliction is estrangement from our own individual divinity. And above all the promise that psychedelic research and medical development holds, it is the ability to recognize and to elevate the primacy of the human soul within the individual, within the community and within the nation. And it is the restoration of that recognition of eternal individual significance that gives life its greatest meaning and purpose at a time when we seem to be a wash in a sea of despair. I am very thankful for our creator and whose image I believe we are all made and I believe that psychedelic medicine helps us come to that recognition within each of ourselves.

[00:13:17]>> Thank you so much for sharing that. Of course, this executive order is about fasttracking research into psychedelics to help treat mental health disorders such as PTSD, addiction. Do you think it will be expanded? Of course, a lot of people suffer from from certain challenges. What are your thoughts around it being expanded? Well, in the arc of evolution, you know, I think that if we look at medicalization, it is really the first step to what I would describe as normalization because ultimately plant medicine is a fundamental human right in my opinion that every individual should be able to access uh whenever they wish and certainly with the proper intention.

[00:13:59]They have the capacity to go beyond their illness and the treatment of people who have conditions that impair their ability to function. it. They have the capacity to optimize who we are as individual human beings. And we can go well beyond the rules of war or substance dependency. If you anybody in your audience goes to the Americans for ibeane.org website, they will see an array of ambassadors who have individual stories. It >> it's honestly very incredible to hear about this. Before I let you go, can you share with us what Friday was like being um just behind President Trump there alongside Joe Rogan, RFK Jr.? What was that moment like for you?

[00:14:41]>> Well, I must confess that uh I have had my own experiences with plant medicine and I've had a few mushroom trips and uh it was it was the trip of a lifetime.

[00:14:55]I can't believe I was standing there.

[00:14:57]And truly, the best part of it for me was to be able to stand right there and look into those cameras and say that federal prohibition of psychedelic medicine in the United in America is over right beside the desk of Roosevelt, Eisenhire, Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan.

[00:15:14]It was phenomenal. And I cannot thank Joe Rogan and the president of the United States enough for bringing this opportunity to the United States and hopefully to the rest of the human family.

[00:15:27]>> CEO of Americans for Ibegan, Brian Huard, thank you so much for being so generous with your time and and sharing some of your personal stories. We really really appreciate it. Thank you.

[00:15:38]>> Thank you, ma'am.