A friend of mine met him once. He told him that MDMA was something to take once a year with careful attention to “set and setting.” He was appalled that people were eating them like candy as a party drug or at raves.
MDMA was originally used to ease psychotherapy and helped countless people move through difficult situations. The original brand name was “Empathy”. People later began abusing it and it was banned.
Sasha was one of the foremost DEA experts on psychoactive drugs and had a license to possess anything for research.
He got in trouble after releasing a book (Pihkhal) explaining how to make all known drugs. He also personally tried most of them and gave reviews in his book.
I met the guy a while ago and like you said he sees them as serious tools and is opposed to their indiscriminate use for partying:
“Use them with care, and use them with respect as to the transformations they can achieve, and you have an extraordinary research tool. Go banging about with a psychedelic drug for a Saturday night turn-on, and you can get into a really bad place, psychologically. Know what you're using, decide just why you're using it, and you can have a rich experience. They're not addictive, and they're certainly not escapist, either, but they're exceptionally valuable tools for understanding the human mind, and how it works.”
Your friend was correct. See post #20.