Hey this "friend of mine" subscribes to Playboy and in this months issue there's a pretty decent article on the use of MDMA, LCD etc. for people who are dieing and need "end of life treatment"
MDMA was also (at its outset) used (in small doses) during relationship therapy and PTSD with great success. There's been little ongoing research since it was relegated to Schedule I, but there's been some at least.
I could be wrong, and I stopped using recreational drugs altogether after developing panic disorder in 2008-- I don't know if there's a connection between my past drug use and the disorder, but I thought the first attacks were bad salvia "flashbacks" or possibly God punishing me for being reckless-- but I think that everything beneficial that can be achieved with psychoactive drugs can be achieved, in time, with meditation. The difference is that meditation takes time and discipline before you start having experiences, while drugs provide experiences right away, but aren't always safe.
I've often made this analogy. Meditation is like riding your bike into the woods. When you start out, you're not in shape so you don't get very far, but you don't end up farther in than you can handle. Psychedelics are like hitchhiking: you get a lot farther, don't always know where the fuck you are, and can usually get back safely (but not always).
Your analogy of meditation being like riding into the woods is great. Its only flaw, however, is in the assertion that both meditation and psychedelic experience arrive at the same mental state. Minus that, likening meditation to progressive, incremental bicycle trips into the forest is accurate and sets a person up wonderfully to begin the discipline.
Psychedelic drugs provide an experience of absorption like a trance. When one is absorbed in such a state, it's the first direct experience of a sense of self that is immaterial (but finite). Buddhist meditation (samadhi or "right concentration" in the Noble Eightfold Path) goes very far beyond that and into very different states of consciousness.
Gil Fronsdal is a Stanford Ph.D who teaches clearly, logically, and in stepwise progression. You can learn here:
If you're interested in empirical studies of samadhi, Dr. James Austin published a book called "Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness" from MIT press.
I hope this helps alleviate your panic and brings you clarity and harmony of mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA#Therapeutic_use