Inside the vaults of Australia’s legal MDMA and psilocybin magic mushroom trade

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 hallucinogenic 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.

“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.”