A Johns Hopkins professor who championed groundbreaking new analysis into psychedelic substances handed away Monday from colon most cancers on the age of 77.
Dr. Roland Redmond Griffiths, in response to a New York Instances obituary, helped usher in a brand new period of psychedelic analysis throughout his time at Johns Hopkins by main a number of research relating to the methods during which psychedelic substances could assist fight a myriad of psychological well being problems.
Dr. Griffiths’ 2006 paper “Psilocybin Can Event Mystical-Sort Experiences Having Substantial and Sustained Private Which means and Religious Significance” was a first-of-its-kind examine during which in any other case wholesome adults have been administered psilocybin in a managed setting. 80 p.c of the individuals described their expertise as “mystical,” that’s holding the identical weight or significance because the start of a kid or the demise of a dad or mum or an in any other case monumental life occasion. These results lasted so long as years in a number of the examine individuals, lots of whom have been interviewed by well-known creator and advocate of psychedelics, Michael Pollan, for his ebook Change Your Thoughts, which was later adopted right into a Netflix collection.
“Roland had such a sterling fame as being a rigorous and conscientious scientist,” Pollan mentioned in a cellphone interview with the New York Instances. “No one in all his stature had stepped into this space in such a very long time that it gave plenty of different folks confidence,” he added. “When he introduced this fully bizarre examine, which was so on the market for science, it may have been dumped on, however it wasn’t.”
The double-blind placebo-controlled examine served as a baseline for dozens of subsequent research on psychedelic substances, all of which have fairly poignantly indicated that psychedelics can doubtlessly have large, overwhelmingly optimistic results on human beings. A cursory search of the phrase “psilocybin examine” on Excessive Instances on-line will show dozens of research exhibiting promising ends in psychedelic therapy for every part from despair to alcoholism, cigarette smoking, PTSD and extra, nearly none of which might have been doable with out Dr. Griffiths’ preliminary work with psilocybin at Johns Hopkins. As one of many main universities within the nation on medical analysis, it was simpler to get approval there than it might have been elsewhere.
Dr. Griffiths’ work with psychedelic medicines continued from there with a examine during which most cancers sufferers receiving end-of-life care who have been affected by the nervousness of going through their very own deaths have been administered psilocybin. He acquired his personal most cancers prognosis in 2021 and advised the New York Instances Magazine he opted to take a big dose of LSD for the aim of exploring his most cancers prognosis and asking the most cancers, level clean, if it was going to kill him.
“The reply was, ‘Sure, you’ll die, however every part is totally good; there’s that means and function to this that goes past your understanding, however the way you’re managing that’s precisely how it is best to handle it,’” Dr. Griffiths mentioned to the New York Instances Journal. “Western materialism says the change will get turned off and that’s it, however there are such a lot of different descriptions. It could possibly be a starting! Wouldn’t that be superb.”
In keeping with the New York Instances obituary, Dr. Griffiths was born July 19, 1946 in Glen Cove, New York to oldsters William and Sylvie Griffiths. He acquired his training at Occidental Faculty in Los Angeles the place he majored in psychology and on the College of Minnesota the place he studied psychopharmacology. He acquired his doctorate diploma in 1972, after which he was employed by Johns Hopkins College the place his analysis centered on drug use and dependancy.
Dr. Griffiths authored and contributed to a number of different research associated to drug use throughout his time at Johns Hopkins, together with a widely-circulated examine on caffeine dependancy within the early 90’s which was the primary to explain continual caffeine use as much like if not the identical as classical types of dependancy. Dr. Griffiths’ analysis on caffeine was among the many first to indicate that it could possibly be thought of an addictive substance with uncomfortable and ugly withdrawals and that caffeine dependancy was a “clinically significant dysfunction.” Dr. Griffiths additionally contributed work to research on opiate use, cocaine, nicotine and extra.
Dr. Griffiths is survived by his spouse, Marla Weiner, in addition to his three kids, 5 grandchildren and two siblings. On the time of his demise, the New York Instances mentioned he was engaged on a paper primarily based on one other examine the place clergymen and different members of non secular orders got excessive doses of psilocybin to see if the expertise may have an effect on the deeply spiritual in comparable methods because it had the themes in his earlier research.
“An indicator function of those experiences is that we’re all on this collectively,” Dr. Griffiths mentioned in an interview with the Chronicle of Increased Schooling earlier this 12 months. “It opens folks as much as this sense that now we have a commonality and that we have to care for one another.”