[throwup238]

Most psychedelics like MDMA or LSD are synthetic; there are only a few naturally occurring ones like psylocibin or LSA (the natural precursor to LSD) and most of them already have synthetic analogues. Many of them were made by pharma companies: Merck first synthesized MDMA over a century ago and patented several variants, long before anyone realized what it was good for.

The FDA grants forms of exclusivity other than patents which would apply and pharma has developed plenty of ways to modify molecules to repatent them like turning them into salts or hydrides, adding amino acid caps, creating alternative methods of application like nasal sprays, etc. It's actually really easy to do which is what led to the proliferation of "research chemicals" over the last twenty years.