A psychedelic advocacy group has brought MDMA - the illegal party drug also known as ecstasy - to the brink of medical legitimacy after 32 years of trying.
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The Food and Drug Administration has labeled the drug a potential "breakthrough" for post-traumatic stress disorder and cleared late-stage studies of up to 300 patients that will begin screening this month.
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If successful, MDMA would become the first illegal psychedelic drug, now in the same restrictive category as heroin and cocaine, to win approval as a prescription medicine.
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The advocacy group was founded by Rick Doblin, who became convinced as a teenager in the tumultuous 1960s that psychedelic drugs like LSD could be the antidote to mankind's destructive tendencies.
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Doblin's ultimate goal is the legalization of all psychedelics for recreational use.
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