There’s a letter from the massive Shulgin archive written by Ann Shulgin, a pioneer of psychedelic therapy and wife of renowned chemist Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, to President Ronald Reagan. She appeals to him, trying to make him understand the value of MDMA just as the federal government was ramping up its drug criminalization efforts in 1984.

 

“I am writing to you, privately and urgently, in the hope that the information I have received — from a single source who could well be misinformed — is valid,” Ann writes in the letter. “I have been led to believe that you have an interest in and a curiosity about the potential value, most particularly in the area of psychotherapy, of a chemical substance known to chemists as ‘methylene-dioxy-meth-amphetamine,’ or MDMA. To non-chemists, it is known by various names, ‘Adam’ in some parts of the country, ‘XTC’ (unwelcome shades of the 1960’s) in others.”