An activist couple (she's a neurscientist, he's a psychologist who successfully treated his depression with psychedelics) (they fight crime!) are raising $1M on Indiegogo to fund production of medical-grade MDMA and psilocybin.
Backers who live in countries where medical trials on psychedelics are underway will get rewards in the form of pharma-grade psychedelics, if they can get letters of permission from the relevant authorities.
The project is called Emmasofia — Emma being a nickname for MDMA that also means "universal," and Sofia meaning "knowledge."
The United Nations classifies MDMA and psilocybin as Schedule I substances, meaning the drugs can only be used for pre-approved scientific and medical purposes. To legally manufacture the drugs, Krebs and Johansen have teamed up with a lab in Oslo that has the licensing to produce MDMA and psilocybin. Due to the sensitivity of the topic, they are not releasing the lab's name.
Once the manufacturing process is up and going, EmmaSofia will sell high-quality, "reasonably priced" psilocybin and MDMA to authorized parties, said Johansen.
EmmaSofia also plans to distribute free psilocybin and MDMA to Indiegogo donors based on how much money they gave. In order to receive the drugs, however, donors would have to secure legal permission from their home country—a process that, realistically, will probably only be feasible for a limited number of people.
Krebs and Johansen point out that physicians in the United States can apply for permission from the Food and Drug Administration to prescribe patients experimental and unapproved drugs through a legal pathway called expanded access, or compassionate use.
According to Krebs and Johansen, potential medical uses for psilocybin include treating cluster headaches, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anxiety related to terminal illness, while MDMA might help treat post-traumatic stress disorder, couples psychotherapy, and Parkinson's disease.
This Couple Is Raising $1 Million to Fund Medical-Grade MDMA and Mushrooms [Steph Yin/Vice]
