The company with rare licence to legally manufacture MDMA, magic mushrooms

Link copiedShareShare articleLoading...For decades, MDMA, also known as ecstasy or molly, has been traded underground and illegally ingested in the shadows of parties and nightclubs. It is a hard drug known for its euphoric high, and side effects can be fatal. Possessing or selling the drug can lead to jail time. But at a manufacturing hub in Brisbane, MDMA is being packed into capsules, for hospitals and clinics across the country. It isn't the only drug processed at the lab. Bags of mushrooms will be weighed before the active ingredient inside, known as psilocybin, is extracted. On the black market they are known as magic mushrooms and are sold for their hallucinogen effects. But in this facility, they have a therapeutic use. The business manufacturing these drugs is Breathe Life Sciences, granted one of the highly regulated licences to work with these drugs in Australia. For the first time, the ABC can take you behind the scenes of its production line, inside the vaults, and all the way to the patients in therapy. It was just over two years ago when chief executive Sam Watson says his company was given the green light to start manufacturing both MDMA and psilocybin. Up until this point, Breathe Life Sciences was focused solely on medicinal cannabis. But in 2023, Australia changed its laws, becoming the first country to allow authorised psychiatrists to prescribe MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression. "For us and for any business trying to operate in this space, it's obviously a challenge," Mr Watson says. "The hurdles and the compliance steps you have to take, the regulatory steps you have to take do pose a massive barrier to entry, which is great. "It took us a long time and it took us a lot of investment and it took us a lot of expertise to get to where we are." The facility houses four major vaults that store millions of dollars' worth of pharmaceutical drugs. Mr Watson says more than 3 million products are manufactured each year for more than 300 clients. MDMA and psylocibin require a "more controlled" environment, and are stored in a separate, smaller vault, which can only be accessed by select staff. Some of the drugs are grown in Australia, while others arrive from overseas, but all go through rigorous testing. "Before we buy it, bring it into our site, it's tested. When it arrives to our site, it's tested in its raw form. When it goes into a finished product, it's then tested again," Mr Watson says. Jess Yugovich underwent MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in November last year, after being diagnosed with PTSD. "I genuinely believe that if I wasn't able to do the MDMA therapy, I wouldn't be here still," she says. In 2024, the Perth mother tragically and unexpectedly lost her three-year-old daughter. "I just went downhill really quickly and nothing seemed to, nothing seemed to help," she says. It was then her psychologist suggested exploring MDMA-assisted therapy. "I was a bit hesitant. I was like, I don't know what MDMA is going to do to help fix the situation that I'm in but I guess I'll give it a go, I've got nothing to lose at this point." The therapy involved three dosing days spread across a few weeks, where the drug was taken orally in the morning. Once it was working in her system, Jess spent the next 6 hours working with her therapist. "The actual experience was nothing like I thought it was going to be," she recalls. "It was almost like having a bird's eye view of my entire life. "It was like being able to step out of the actual situation and view it from the outside to see every part of what's actually going on." She says since losing her daughter, it was the first time she let herself feel her emotions. "I was able to revisit my traumas in a way that actually allowed me to process them for the first time ever," she says. "Up until the first session, I genuinely felt like my feelings and emotions were going to kill me if I allowed myself to feel them. "But they didn't kill me, I'm still here, and I was able to connect with myself in a way that I haven't ever been able to do my entire life." The chemical release from the MDMA meant Jess could enter a different state of being. But she emphasises the therapy aspect was just as important as the drug. "It's not a magic pill … you need to put in the work before, during, and after," she says. "It didn't resolve all my trauma, it didn't take it away, but it allowed me to process it, it allowed me to revisit it and learn to be able to live with it." As it stands, MDMA and psylocibin make up about 1 to 2 per cent of sales at Breathe Life Sciences. One of those sales is to the Empax Centre in Perth, where Jess Yugovich's treatment took place. It is one of the few clinics across the country that offer the psychedelic-assisted therapies. The treatment was first offered at the centre in October 2023 and since then, more than 80 patients have been treated w

The company with rare licence to legally manufacture MDMA, magic mushrooms

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