Inside the quest to make “plant-based” MDMA

This fun, intriguing story from DoubleBlind magazine starts: "Plant-based MDMA. If this sounds like something dreamed up in a stoned haze by a couple of psychedelic enthusiasts, that’s because… it is. After all, MDMA is a synthetic substance invented in 1912 by German pharmaceutical company Merck, and even as the drug jumped from psychotherapy offices to rave dancefloors, it has remained squarely in the public consciousness as a pill or powder concocted by chemists in a lab, rather than something natural that’s grown in a field.  But MDMA is a relatively simple molecule that can be synthesized in a variety of ways. Most methods begin with safrole, an organic compound used to make cosmetics, pesticides — and until it was banned in 1960 by the FDA — even food flavoring like root beer. “It’s basically a two-step synthesis if you start with safrole,” said David E. Nichols, a longtime psychedelic chemist who supplied the MDMA used for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies’ (MAPS) Phase I and II clinical trials. When Nichols made a batch of MDMA in 1985, he was able to order a big bottle of safrole from a chemical supply company without any legal restrictions. But safrole oil is now a tightly controlled List I Chemical under federal law precisely because of its use in the illegal manufacturing of MDMA.  Still, safrole is found in the sassafras tree and many other plant species that grow abundantly around the world. So if someone with enough capital and ingenuity felt up to the task, they could work with (and around) existing laws to figure out a way to make MDMA from plants — which is exactly what venture capitalist Ford Smith decided he wanted to do. In 2021, Smith was sitting on a couch at his home in Austin, Texas, getting stoned with Rick Doblin, founder of MAPS and leader of the movement to legalize MDMA. Smith had recently learned that MDMA could be derived from plants, and this surprising discovery played into his longtime passion for regenerative and organic plant medicine supply chains. Through his VC firm Ultranative, Smith has invested in several psychedelic and cannabis companies, including a non-profit called ECCO for pesticide-free cannabis."

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