If Congress passes a law letting researchers study ibogaine (a plant alkaloid with addiction-treatment potential), the DEA (the US drug enforcement agency) controls when it actually happens. The DEA will take at least a year to implement it, even after Congress acts, because that's how the agency has always handled cannabis research exemptions. This delays actual research.
DEA controls the regulatory implementation timeline regardless of congressional mandate — this is structural, not contingent. Cannabis research exemption history confirms the pattern: Congress authorizes, DEA schedules the scheduling review on its own clock. An ibogaine exemption without a hard DEA implementation deadline (which Congress rarely writes) will default to DEA discretion. Falsifiable: if enacted language includes a hard 90-day DEA action deadline with automatic rescheduling, this fails.