Roland Griffiths Is dead at 77; Led a renaissance in psychedelics research

This New York Times article honouring the great Roland Griffiths starts: "Roland Griffiths, a professor of behavioral science and psychiatry whose pioneering work in the study of psychedelics helped usher in a new era of research into those once banned substances — and reintroduced the mystical into scientific discourse about them — died on Monday at his home in Baltimore. He was 77. The cause was colon cancer, said Claudia Turnbull, a longtime friend. Dr. Griffiths, a distinguished psychopharmacologist and professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, spent decades studying the mechanisms of dependence on mood-altering drugs. He published scores of papers on opiates and cocaine, on sedatives and alcohol, on nicotine and caffeine. His work on caffeine, which he noted was the most commonly used drug in the world, was groundbreaking, showing that, yes, it was addictive, that withdrawal could be painful and that caffeine dependence was a “clinically meaningful disorder.” But in August 2006 he published a paper that wasn’t just groundbreaking; it was mind-blowing. The paper had an unusual title: “Psilocybin Can Occasion Mystical-Type Experiences Having Substantial and Sustained Personal Meaning and Spiritual Significance.” And when it appeared in the magazine Psychopharmacology, it caused a media ruckus."

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