“The Drug Enforcement Administration moved to criminalize Ecstasy, having no knowledge of its therapeutic use. So I went to Washington, and I went into the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and I filed a lawsuit demanding a hearing, at which psychiatrists and psychotherapists would be able to present information about therapeutic use of MDMA to try to keep it legal. And in the middle of the hearing, the DEA freaked out, declared an emergency and criminalized all uses of MDMA. And so the only way that I could see to bring it back was through science, through medicine and through the FDA drug development process. So in 1986, I started MAPS as a nonprofit psychedelic pharmaceutical company. It took us 30 years, till 2016, to develop the data that we needed to present to FDA to request permission to move into the large-scale Phase 3 studies that are required to prove safety and efficacy before you get approval for prescription use.”
Akoman – Archaic Modulation
