Pioneering Psychedelics Researcher Roland Griffiths Opens Up About His Terminal Diagnosis

In this intimate interview, Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., reflects on his life’s work in the context of his own cancer diagnosis.

Dr. Griffiths was a professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research.

A pioneer in the study of psychedelics, he investigated how these medicines could help treat depression, addiction and psychological distress among people facing life-threatening cancer diagnoses.

At age 76, Dr. Griffiths was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic colon cancer.

End Well: How have you navigated your cancer diagnosis while remaining positive and present?

Roland: So many things have unfolded since the diagnosis, most of them absolutely wonderful and unexpected.

While reviewing my will and looking at the bigger picture, Marla and I began asking ourselves whether, after living together for 11 years, it would be meaningful to get married.

We had discussed it repeatedly before and concluded that there was no reason to do so. We were committed to one another and deeply valued our relationship.

But reevaluating my circumstances led us to ask the question again.

Initially, it was, “Why?”

Then Marla reflected on it and said, “You know what? It would be meaningful to me to be married and to say that you were my husband.”

With that, it instantaneously became important to me.

We decided to get married, and we did so in our home.

This is a team effort all the way. Marla and I agree that the healthiest thing we can do, in terms of healing, is to lean into this with gratitude, equipoise and love.

End Well: How has your diagnosis changed your priorities?

Roland: There was an awakening that occurred with a magnitude far beyond anything I had experienced before.

It became intensely important to be with what is real, to practice gratitude and to prioritize how I am going to live the rest of my life. That shifted enormously with the diagnosis.

My bottom line is: How can I use my remaining time most effectively?

There are things I truly want to do and things that are important to me. The prioritization becomes crystal clear.

It is actually quite freeing because you can cross things off immediately.

“Do I need to manage this administrative detail in my life?”

No. I no longer do that.

It is about relationships. It is about family, friends and love.

End Well: How has the use of psychedelic medicines affected your relationships? What might psychedelic therapies offer people facing cancer?

Roland: A sense of transparency has shifted my relationship with everyone I encounter.

I feel differently. Maybe there is less of an agenda because there is no point other than speaking the truth.

For people with cancer, I would hope they could draw on some of the things that have become so apparent to me.

There is a way of entering this space. There is a way of experiencing the discomfort of surgery and chemotherapy, as well as the disappointment when new scans or tests show that treatment is not working.

There is a way of holding those experiences as part of reality and remaining grateful for them. They do not have to be experienced only through pain or grief.

End Well: What role could psychedelics play at the end of life?

Roland: The end of life is an understandable application for psychedelics because they can address deep existential questions that may not arise in the same way when treating substance use or depression.

Someone may have an authentic experience that everything is interconnected.

There are different ways of having that experience. It can be introvertive, something experienced by going inward. It can also be extrovertive, with the eyes open.

The conditions under which we have administered psilocybin, using eyeshades and headphones, prioritize the introvertive experience.

That sense of interconnectedness can feel precious beyond belief. Some people would use the word “sacred.” A secular description might simply be “precious beyond belief.”

We want people to awaken to the fact that they do not need to be dying to have the kind of experience I am having.

It should be part of the human condition. In principle, it should be attainable.

We want people to awaken to that possibility. Psychedelics are one of many ways to do so.

End Well: What would a good death look like for you?

Roland: My personal view is that the probability of consciousness, life or something else surviving death is extraordinarily low.

I cannot rule it out entirely because we are entering into mystery.

But all it takes is a fraction of a chance. It could be one in 200 million or one in 200 billion.

If there is still a possibility, then the transition from life to death deserves a great deal of curiosity and interest.

I will be fascinated to enter that transition.

The remarkable thing is that I will probably know the answer. Either I will know nothing, or I will know that there is something before any of you have the chance to experience it.

A good death would be one in which I remain awake to that possibility.

This Q&A was adapted from Dr. Roland Griffiths and his wife Marla’s original interview with Manish Agrawal, M.D., of Sunstone Therapies.