WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration announced today that it is prepared to reschedule MDMA, provided the drug is sufficiently expensive and distributed by a company with a market capitalization exceeding $1 trillion.
Under the proposed framework, Americans could potentially gain legal access to MDMA-assisted therapy sometime in the future, assuming they can afford approximately $20,000 per treatment and obtain it through a highly regulated pharmaceutical ecosystem involving several dozen forms, waivers, assessments, and payment plans that would put Klarna to shame.
“We're not opposed to MDMA,” said an FDA spokesperson. “We're opposed to unmonetized MDMA.”
According to agency officials, the drug's safety profile becomes considerably more reassuring once it has passed through enough corporate compliance departments and acquired a premium price tag.
“Obviously, someone taking MDMA with friends at a music festival is dangerous,” the spokesperson explained. “But if the exact same molecule is administered in a sterile clinical environment by someone wearing a Patagonia vest, after a $20,000 transaction involving a publicly traded company, that's medicine.”
The FDA also emphasized that rescheduling would not necessarily mean Americans could simply access MDMA.
“That would be recreational access,” the spokesperson said. “We're talking about venture-backed access.”
Meanwhile, underground practitioners reportedly remain confused as to why the government is preparing to spend billions creating a pharmaceutical infrastructure to deliver a substance that has been circulating outside the pharmaceutical infrastructure beautifully and efficiently for decades.
Officials declined to comment on whether MDMA might eventually become affordable.
“Let's not get ahead of ourselves,” the spokesperson said. “First, somebody needs to IPO.”