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Rick Doblin stands in front of a press conference in front of the Washington DC capitol building on a hot August day, surrounded by Veterans, his research team, and press, and announces that after 40 years of being criminalized, MDMA (commonly known as Molly or Ecstasy) has finally been rescheduled by the FDA and can now be prescribed to treat PTSD. Insurance may even cover it. As the first of a host of psychedelics currently in medical trials, this could revolutionize mental health care worldwide. The team who brought MDMA to market are not your typical Big Pharma execs, but rather a scrappy non-profit (MAPS), founded by a brilliant-but-unlikely hero, Harvard Grad and stoner, Dr. Rick Doblin.

After the press conference celebrating MDMA’s legalization, we follow Rick to his home. He takes off his tie, lies on the couch with his wife, and lights a joint. “Well,” he says, taking a hit and looking into the camera, “I guess you can finally finish your film now!”

Filmmaker Nirvan Mullick has doggedly followed Rick’s work to legalize MDMA for over a decade, despite having never done any psychedelics himself. In order to tell Rick’s true story, including underground therapeutic work, Nirvan promised not to release the film until after MDMA became a legal prescription drug. Ten years later, that against-all-odds story can finally be told.

The result is an intimate portrait of a living legend who set out 50 years ago to bring psychedelics back into mainstream culture . Rick, now 70, first dropped acid in 1971 when he was a shy freshman in college. He immediately dropped out, announcing his desire to be a “psychedelic psychotherapist” to concerned parents. His friends thought he was joking, but Rick was serious. He felt psychedelics could be a powerful tool for individual healing, but they also had the potential to steer society away from catastrophe.

Rick spent the next decade tripping, raising his pet wolf, and studying underground psychedelic therapy. Before MDMA was outlawed, Rick used it therapeutically, even helping a suicidal woman to regain the will to live. After the FDA criminalized MDMA in 1984, banning all recreational and therapeutic use based on junk science, Rick realized he would have to change the law in order to make psychedelic therapy possible again. In order to do that, Rick would have to change himself.

Rick went back to school, got into Harvard, and wrote his PhD on how to legalize psychedelics through the FDA’s drug approval process. He founded a non-profit and raised over $200 million, building bi-partisan support, to fund FDA clinical trials that showed MDMA-assisted therapy helped heal chronic PTSD for 2/3rds of participants after 3 treatments. The FDA designated MDMA assisted therapy a “Breakthrough” therapy, with the potential to help millions of Veterans, first responders and others.

Nirvan has always had questions about drugs. He grew up on a psychedelic “cult-adjascent” commune, and the trauma led him to be deeply skeptical of drugs at an early age. He was also a child of the 80’s “Just Say No” propaganda, which he was also skeptical of. As a teenager, Nirvan made a parody of the infamous “This is your brain on drugs” PSA, in which teenage Nirvan cracks an egg into a frying pan, and asks, “Any QUESTIONS?” as the camera pans to reveal a classroom full of kids, all with their hands raised.

Nirvan ended up going to New College, the same college that Rick had dropped out of. Rick was a legendary alumni, and was actually in Nirvan’s very first film, made over 30 years ago. In following Rick, and delving deep into the world of psychedelics, Nirvan is able to finally get answers to the questions he has always had, and to see what it takes to try to change culture.

The work is often unglamorous, but Rick perseveres. He forms a B-Corp pharmaceutical company in preparation of scaling production and therapeutic use of MDMA. Rick believes the company must be guided by his mission for public good, but capitalist interests seep in, and Rick grapples with letting go of a dream now beyond his control. With regrets for the mis-steps made along the way, a largely underground network of psychedelic therapists and researchers celebrate a major win.

Legalization opens questions of stewardship, safety, scale, and equity. Will this new chapter in history live up to Rick’s dream? Or will it fall short again, like well-intentioned utopian visions of the past?

Rick has achieved a sea change, survived cancer, and stepped down from leading MAPS. Having no equity in the Pharma company, Rick does not stand to profit off his work, but his ultimate reward is being able to offer psychedelic psychotherapy to folks in need.

We follow Rick into a small therapy office, a placard on the door reads “Dr. Rick Doblin, Psychedelic Psychotherapist.” As Rick sits down to treat his first patient, the camera turns to reveal the filmmaker, Nirvan, sitting across from him. Rick grins and hands Nirvan two small pills. Nirvan swallows the pills, lies down and closes his eyes, ready to face his past while also stepping into what could be a radical new future.

Your donation will go a long way to help us finish this film and bring this story to the world!

Please email Co-Producer Dream Mullick w/any questions.