Roland Griffiths, Ph.D. (1944–2023)
Founding Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research
The psychopharmacologist who relaunched modern psilocybin research with his 2006 landmark study and founded the first major US academic psychedelic research center.
Biography
Roland Griffiths was a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and one of the most cited psychopharmacologists of his generation. His early career focused on sedative drug dependence and the behavioral pharmacology of caffeine. Beginning in the late 1990s, Griffiths became interested in psychedelics as tools for studying consciousness.
His landmark 2006 study in Psychopharmacology — titled 'Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance' — was the study that formally reopened psychedelic research after the 30-year post-Leary prohibition. In a controlled double-blind study, two-thirds of participants rated the psilocybin session as one of the five most spiritually significant experiences of their lives. A 14-month follow-up showed sustained positive changes in personality, attitudes, and behavior.
Griffiths subsequently led or co-led major clinical trials for psilocybin in treatment-resistant depression, cancer anxiety, smoking cessation, and major depressive disorder. He founded the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research in 2019 — the first such center at a major US academic medical center.
Diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in 2021, Griffiths continued research and gave widely shared interviews on his own end-of-life experience with psilocybin. He died in October 2023. His work set the methodological and ethical standard for modern psychedelic research.
Organizations
Why They Matter to the LearnShrooms Community
Griffiths is the single most important figure in the legitimization of modern psilocybin research. His 2006 paper provided the scientific foundation that convinced funding bodies, institutions, and regulators that psychedelic research was legitimate and valuable. Nearly every major clinical trial since 2006 builds on his methodology.
Legal Context
For the legal landscape where Roland Griffiths, Ph.D. (1944–2023) operates, see psilocybin laws in Maryland.