Getting Ecstasy to market involves fewer regulatory hurdles than even drugs for animals. It just so happens to be illegal in most countries.
I thought he'd be doing "this drug is for cats" winkwink and then people use it, but in retrospect a judge would see right through that.
I wonder if it would be significantly cheaper to go through regulatory approvals for a drug in another country, to the point where it would be worthwhile to relocate the company?
Given that it was on HN, I imagined someone working through various strains of catnip to optimize their cats' high through some complicated ML-guided process.