Roland Griffiths, and his legacy

A Johns Hopkins professor and leading researcher of psychedelics faces his death and invites others to carry on his work.

No one person has led the so-called psychedelic renaissance. Many have played vital roles: Rick Doblin of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, best-selling author Michael Pollan, philanthropist and podcaster Tim Ferriss and Bob Jesse, an influential behind-the-scenes networker, among others. But none has done more to bring psychedelics to the mainstream than Roland Griffiths, the founding director of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins University, the leading center for the scientific investigation of psychedelics.

This is an opportune moment to recognize Griffiths’ influence, as his career winds down. He’s 76 years old. He has Stage IV colon cancer. His prognosis is grim.

But Griffiths is not fading into the background: Instead, he is sharing the experience of facing his mortality and seeking to establish a program at Johns Hopkins to carry on his explorations of psychedelics, spirituality and well-being.

A professor in the departments of psychiatry and neurosciences, Griffiths led a landmark study, published in 2006, that opened the gates to a tide of…