Long trip: Psychedelic advocate nears goal of legal ecstasy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Growing up amid the tumult of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War, Rick Doblin says he became convinced that humanity was "crazy" and "inherently destructive." As a teenager, he came to see the mind-expanding effects of psychedelics — including LSD and magic mushrooms — as the antidote to mankind's inner demons.

He set out to prove it. And now, after 32 years of false starts, setbacks and regulatory hurdles, he has brought MDMA — the illegal, all-night party drug also known as ecstasy — to the brink of medical legitimacy.

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.