12 ms·

Psychedelics researcher approached his death with calm and curiosity

162 points by ianai 3y ago

Arubis 3y ago
For those so inclined, Tara Brach had a lovely interview with Roland early this year: https://overcast.fm/+SWwgtYFDM https://overcast.fm/+SWwgtYFDM From the podcast summary: Meditation, Psychedelics, Mortality: A conversation with Tara and Roland Griffiths - Roland is a long-term meditator, a psychopharmacologist and professor at Johns Hopkins, and a leader in researching the clinical effects of psychedelics, including their impact on those struggling with cancer, depression or addiction. At the end of 2021, he discovered he had incurable stage 4 Colon Cancer. This conversation explores the relationship between meditation and psychedelics, and how they both can serve profound spiritual awakening and deep inner freedom in the face of mortality. Information about the endowment fund: The Roland R. Griffiths, Ph.D. Professorship Fund in Psychedelic Research on Secular Spirituality and Well-Being.
- jseliger 3y ago
  I'm not a psychedelic researcher, but I have taken psychedelics, and I recently wrote "Strange trip: Psychedelics and confronting the fear of death:" https://jakeseliger.com/2023/09/25/strange-trip-psychedelics-and-confronting-the-fear-of-death/ https://jakeseliger.com/2023/09/25/strange-trip-psychedelics..., which covers similar themes.
  - nekitamo 3y ago
    Your blog is deeply moving, thank you for posting the link. When my time comes, I hope I accept it with the equanimity and grace you display.
    - jseliger 3y ago
      Thank you and you're welcome, too!
  - ggpsv 3y ago
    A beautiful read, thank you for sharing. May you and your partner be well.
    - jseliger 3y ago
      Thank you and you're welcome, too!
  - bigboy12 3y ago
    Great article. Thinking of you and your family.
  - zemvpferreira 3y ago
    I got to this late but thank you for sharing Jake, a beautiful read. Here's to hoping on the extraordinarily unlikeliness you'll still be with us in your 50s.
- manuelmoreale 3y ago
  There’s also this episode with Sam Harris that is worth listening to: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/waking-up-conversations/psychedelics-mortality https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/waking-up-conversations/p...
bobosha 3y ago
I wish there was more support to not just decriminalize but legalize psychedelics broadly. I know there are plenty of ongoing clinical trials, but the collection of Psilocybin, LSD, Mescaline, Ibogaine is genuinely a treasure chest and probably the best thing that has happened to medicine in a long time, if not ever. Edit: i highly recommend watching Michael Pollan's "How to change your mind" (Netflix documentary). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8LRb4jfZ9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8LRb4jfZ9g
- almatabata 3y ago
  When you say legalize broadly i guess you mean allow doctors to prescribe it to their patients with proper protocols and not just allow anyone to buy it over the counter?
  - fullspectrumdev 3y ago
    When I talk about legalising drugs, I mean being able to buy them with the same level of control as beer or cigarettes.
    - gymbeaux 3y ago
      Because beer and cigarettes are both mind-altering drugs yet get a pass because of mostly-economic reasons.
      - freedomben 3y ago
        Not economic, historical. It's purely because both were things before the puritan movement (which still greatly impacts society today) and people are already familiar with them. If alcohol were discovered today, there's no way in hell it would be legal
        gymbeaux 3y ago
        So of course they’re both very old staples in human culture, but I mean to say that any attempts to regulate them are/will be met with more economic resistance than cultural… like Anheiser-Busch (spelling definitely wrong) and Philip-Morris (now Altria I believe) would be a bigger obstacle than “the people.”
pizzafeelsright 3y ago
How is this different from escaping problems through drug use?
- wombat-man 3y ago
  Psychedelics are so different from alcohol and narcotics, idk how to explain. Instead of being distracted or numbed from your problems, you may concentrate on them deeply and from new angles. But delusions can occur too. Ymmv.
- freedomben 3y ago
  Is it fair to infer that you have a value judgment on escaping problems through drug use, and think it's wrong or bad? If so, why?
  - pizzafeelsright 3y ago
    Yes. Instead of escaping, let's solve the problem instead.
    - freedomben 3y ago
      Why do you think the former precludes the latter? This seems to be like if someone comes to a doctor with an arrow stuck through him, someone saying "don't give him any pain killers, that's bad. Just take the arrow out so the problem is solved." You should obviously remove the arrow to correct the root cause, but you don't need to deny the patient pain killers in order to do so. Judging him morally or legally for wanting them doesn't make sense to me, short of claiming that an unprovable all powerful being who talks to man only through extremely unreliable and non reproducable channels has revealed to us that it's actually a sin.
      - gehwartzen 3y ago
        For me it depends on context; Pain exists for a purpose (i.e don't put wait on a broken leg otherwise you could extend healing time or make things worse) but if technology allows us to mitigate the potential problems (i.e fixing the bone and apply a cast will allow you to walk but not add strain) getting ride of pain in the meantime is probably a net good. If you have chronic pain of some sort and you use substances to mask that pain the root problem hasn't been addressed and still exists, you just won't be aware of it. If loosing awareness (which at its simplest is what painkillers do) of the ongoing problem is okey with you by all means take a substance to mask it, just don't be surprised when the original problem grows worse latter. Im okey with people masking or not masking. It should be a personal choice free of judgement. There are two guys and both are extremely depressed. One guy decides to seek out a therapist and has a meeting set for two weeks from now, the other guy decides to take MDMA/LSD/shrooms (or whatever) every day. He feels amazing and is living his best life every day. The first guy is super depressed day to day but maybe the therapy will help... The next week they are on a plane together that crashes. Who made the better decision? Alternatively they don't die and instead live decades more. The first guy got to the root of his issues and lived a very happy life while the second eventually burned out and fell into even deeper depression for his remaining years. Who made the better decision? It is not fair for us to judge others on how they would like to treat their own bodies and minds. We don't know the totality of their path through life.
ganzuul 3y ago
"This life is only a prelude to eternity." - Seneca You can mostly avoid upsetting people with the God language by talking about love of truth instead.
- nwiswell 3y ago
  Can't we say, with nearly as much accuracy, that this life is an epilogue to eternity?
  - dartos 3y ago
    I don’t think so. Eternity, by definition, never ends, so this life couldn’t come after the end.
    - nwiswell 3y ago
      Mmm. That presupposes infinite linear time. By most accounts, "this life" bookends about 13.7 billion years of linear time, but how do we understand the state of things before that? How could we understand the state of things once the heat death of the universe is a distant cosmic memory, and entropy no longer provides an "arrow of time"?
      - ganzuul 3y ago
        Everything we know about time is total order, but partial order is also possible.
  - jareklupinski 3y ago
    it's a stop along the way from infinity to forever stretch your legs :)
  - pdntspa 3y ago
    Either case sounds like some fancy mental gymnastics to feel good about uncertainty. Much better to embrace it and admit, "I don't know."
- 3y ago
ggpsv 3y ago
This is not mentioned in the article, but upon learning about his prognosis Griffith worked on establishing an endowment to support the continued research on psychedelics and "secular spirituality and well-being". I recommend watching Griffith's video message [0] where he talks about the research and reflects on his condition. I also recommend the conversation with Sam Harris that someone else shared in a comment. [0]: https://griffithsfund.org/vision/ https://griffithsfund.org/vision/
ipnon 3y ago
Griffiths was the driving force behind mainstream acceptance of psychedelic medicine with his work at Johns Hopkins. He showed that psilocybin was not only effective but was the most effective treatment for terminal psychiatric care and addiction, and he did it all within the mode of academic medical research. I hope his death was painless. A great scientist deserves no less.
- unihd2kno 3y ago
  it was his character in combo with the delics. this kind of treatment can only be taught if aspiring teacher/psych/shrink is super-rational and NOT at all if said person is rational (=pseudo-rational)
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
rjbwork 3y ago
Sam Harris did an interview with him last year that was pretty good on the topic of psychedelics and death. https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/306-psychedelics-mortality https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/306...
alienicecream 3y ago
[flagged]
georgex7 3y ago
Beautiful

162 points by ianai 3y ago

For those so inclined, Tara Brach had a lovely interview with Roland early this year: https://overcast.fm/+SWwgtYFDM https://overcast.fm/+SWwgtYFDM From the podcast summary: Meditation, Psychedelics, Mortality: A conversation with Tara and Roland Griffiths - Roland is a long-term meditator, a psychopharmacologist and professor at Johns Hopkins, and a leader in researching the clinical effects of psychedelics, including their impact on those struggling with cancer, depression or addiction. At the end of 2021, he discovered he had incurable stage 4 Colon Cancer. This conversation explores the relationship between meditation and psychedelics, and how they both can serve profound spiritual awakening and deep inner freedom in the face of mortality. Information about the endowment fund: The Roland R. Griffiths, Ph.D. Professorship Fund in Psychedelic Research on Secular Spirituality and Well-Being.

jseliger 3y ago
I'm not a psychedelic researcher, but I have taken psychedelics, and I recently wrote "Strange trip: Psychedelics and confronting the fear of death:" https://jakeseliger.com/2023/09/25/strange-trip-psychedelics-and-confronting-the-fear-of-death/ https://jakeseliger.com/2023/09/25/strange-trip-psychedelics..., which covers similar themes.
- nekitamo 3y ago
  Your blog is deeply moving, thank you for posting the link. When my time comes, I hope I accept it with the equanimity and grace you display.
  - jseliger 3y ago
    Thank you and you're welcome, too!
- ggpsv 3y ago
  A beautiful read, thank you for sharing. May you and your partner be well.
  - jseliger 3y ago
    Thank you and you're welcome, too!
- bigboy12 3y ago
  Great article. Thinking of you and your family.
- zemvpferreira 3y ago
  I got to this late but thank you for sharing Jake, a beautiful read. Here's to hoping on the extraordinarily unlikeliness you'll still be with us in your 50s.
manuelmoreale 3y ago
There’s also this episode with Sam Harris that is worth listening to: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/waking-up-conversations/psychedelics-mortality https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/waking-up-conversations/p...

bobosha 3y ago

I wish there was more support to not just decriminalize but legalize psychedelics broadly. I know there are plenty of ongoing clinical trials, but the collection of Psilocybin, LSD, Mescaline, Ibogaine is genuinely a treasure chest and probably the best thing that has happened to medicine in a long time, if not ever. Edit: i highly recommend watching Michael Pollan's "How to change your mind" (Netflix documentary). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8LRb4jfZ9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8LRb4jfZ9g

almatabata 3y ago
When you say legalize broadly i guess you mean allow doctors to prescribe it to their patients with proper protocols and not just allow anyone to buy it over the counter?
- fullspectrumdev 3y ago
  When I talk about legalising drugs, I mean being able to buy them with the same level of control as beer or cigarettes.
  - gymbeaux 3y ago
    Because beer and cigarettes are both mind-altering drugs yet get a pass because of mostly-economic reasons.
    - freedomben 3y ago
      Not economic, historical. It's purely because both were things before the puritan movement (which still greatly impacts society today) and people are already familiar with them. If alcohol were discovered today, there's no way in hell it would be legal
      - gymbeaux 3y ago
        So of course they’re both very old staples in human culture, but I mean to say that any attempts to regulate them are/will be met with more economic resistance than cultural… like Anheiser-Busch (spelling definitely wrong) and Philip-Morris (now Altria I believe) would be a bigger obstacle than “the people.”

pizzafeelsright 3y ago

How is this different from escaping problems through drug use?

wombat-man 3y ago
Psychedelics are so different from alcohol and narcotics, idk how to explain. Instead of being distracted or numbed from your problems, you may concentrate on them deeply and from new angles. But delusions can occur too. Ymmv.
freedomben 3y ago
Is it fair to infer that you have a value judgment on escaping problems through drug use, and think it's wrong or bad? If so, why?
- pizzafeelsright 3y ago
  Yes. Instead of escaping, let's solve the problem instead.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Why do you think the former precludes the latter? This seems to be like if someone comes to a doctor with an arrow stuck through him, someone saying "don't give him any pain killers, that's bad. Just take the arrow out so the problem is solved." You should obviously remove the arrow to correct the root cause, but you don't need to deny the patient pain killers in order to do so. Judging him morally or legally for wanting them doesn't make sense to me, short of claiming that an unprovable all powerful being who talks to man only through extremely unreliable and non reproducable channels has revealed to us that it's actually a sin.
    - gehwartzen 3y ago
      For me it depends on context; Pain exists for a purpose (i.e don't put wait on a broken leg otherwise you could extend healing time or make things worse) but if technology allows us to mitigate the potential problems (i.e fixing the bone and apply a cast will allow you to walk but not add strain) getting ride of pain in the meantime is probably a net good. If you have chronic pain of some sort and you use substances to mask that pain the root problem hasn't been addressed and still exists, you just won't be aware of it. If loosing awareness (which at its simplest is what painkillers do) of the ongoing problem is okey with you by all means take a substance to mask it, just don't be surprised when the original problem grows worse latter. Im okey with people masking or not masking. It should be a personal choice free of judgement. There are two guys and both are extremely depressed. One guy decides to seek out a therapist and has a meeting set for two weeks from now, the other guy decides to take MDMA/LSD/shrooms (or whatever) every day. He feels amazing and is living his best life every day. The first guy is super depressed day to day but maybe the therapy will help... The next week they are on a plane together that crashes. Who made the better decision? Alternatively they don't die and instead live decades more. The first guy got to the root of his issues and lived a very happy life while the second eventually burned out and fell into even deeper depression for his remaining years. Who made the better decision? It is not fair for us to judge others on how they would like to treat their own bodies and minds. We don't know the totality of their path through life.

ganzuul 3y ago

"This life is only a prelude to eternity." - Seneca You can mostly avoid upsetting people with the God language by talking about love of truth instead.

nwiswell 3y ago
Can't we say, with nearly as much accuracy, that this life is an epilogue to eternity?
- dartos 3y ago
  I don’t think so. Eternity, by definition, never ends, so this life couldn’t come after the end.
  - nwiswell 3y ago
    Mmm. That presupposes infinite linear time. By most accounts, "this life" bookends about 13.7 billion years of linear time, but how do we understand the state of things before that? How could we understand the state of things once the heat death of the universe is a distant cosmic memory, and entropy no longer provides an "arrow of time"?
    - ganzuul 3y ago
      Everything we know about time is total order, but partial order is also possible.
- jareklupinski 3y ago
  it's a stop along the way from infinity to forever stretch your legs :)
- pdntspa 3y ago
  Either case sounds like some fancy mental gymnastics to feel good about uncertainty. Much better to embrace it and admit, "I don't know."
3y ago

ggpsv 3y ago

This is not mentioned in the article, but upon learning about his prognosis Griffith worked on establishing an endowment to support the continued research on psychedelics and "secular spirituality and well-being". I recommend watching Griffith's video message [0] where he talks about the research and reflects on his condition. I also recommend the conversation with Sam Harris that someone else shared in a comment. [0]: https://griffithsfund.org/vision/ https://griffithsfund.org/vision/

ipnon 3y ago

Griffiths was the driving force behind mainstream acceptance of psychedelic medicine with his work at Johns Hopkins. He showed that psilocybin was not only effective but was the most effective treatment for terminal psychiatric care and addiction, and he did it all within the mode of academic medical research. I hope his death was painless. A great scientist deserves no less.

unihd2kno 3y ago
it was his character in combo with the delics. this kind of treatment can only be taught if aspiring teacher/psych/shrink is super-rational and NOT at all if said person is rational (=pseudo-rational)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

rjbwork 3y ago

Sam Harris did an interview with him last year that was pretty good on the topic of psychedelics and death. https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/306-psychedelics-mortality https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/306...

alienicecream 3y ago

[flagged]

georgex7 3y ago

Beautiful