Roland Griffiths was a psychopharmacologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Hopkins says he earned his doctorate at the University of Minnesota in 1972, joined Johns Hopkins straight after, and was known first for research on caffeine dependence (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2023).
His 2006 double-blind study gave psilocybin and, in another session, methylphenidate to volunteers who had never used a hallucinogen; two months later they rated the psilocybin session as having substantial personal meaning and spiritual significance (Griffiths et al., 2006). At 14 months, 58% ranked it among the five most meaningful experiences of their lives (Griffiths et al., 2008). Hopkins credits the 2006 study with starting a renaissance in psychedelic research (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2023).
In 2019 he became director of the new Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2019). He died on 16 October 2023, aged 77 (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2023). Critics of the Hopkins work point to small, selected samples and to blinding and expectancy problems that may inflate results (Muthukumaraswamy et al., 2021).
Sources
- Johns Hopkins Medicine obituary release, 2023 (archived)
- Griffiths et al., 2006, Psychopharmacology
- Griffiths et al., 2008, Journal of Psychopharmacology
- Muthukumaraswamy et al., 2021
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