Lester Grinspoon was an American psychiatrist and longstanding associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard University who is best known for his groundbreaking work on the science and social policy of cannabis, psychedelics and other drugs, prompting his ensuing commitment to the reformation of harmful drug policies.
18 Facts About Lester Grinspoon
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Lester Grinspoon concurrently served as a senior psychiatrist at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center for 40 years.
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Lester Grinspoon was founding editor of The American Psychiatric Association Annual Review and Harvard Mental Health Letter.
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Lester Grinspoon was editor of Harvard Mental Health Letter for fifteen years.
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Lester Grinspoon was born June 24,1928, in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Sally and Simon Lester Grinspoon.
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Lester Grinspoon then enrolled at Harvard Medical School, where he received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1955.
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Lester Grinspoon was married and the father of four children, including astrobiologist David Grinspoon and physician and author Peter Grinspoon.
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Lester Grinspoon died in Newton on June 25,2020, one day after his 92nd birthday.
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Lester Grinspoon became interested in cannabis in the 1960s when its use in the United States increased dramatically.
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In 1990 Grinspoon won the Alfred R Lindesmith Award for Achievement in the Field of Scholarship from the Drug Policy Foundation.
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Former colleagues Ming Tsuang and Joseph Coyle have maintained that the denial of Lester Grinspoon's promotion was likely predicated on his perceived neglect of "original research" in favor of "[synthesizing] the work of others".
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In 2018, The Harvard Crimson published an editorial called "Lester Grinspoon Reconsidered" that was highly critical of Harvard Medical School for retaliating against Lester Grinspoon's now-visionary work on cannabis.
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Lester had a cannabis strain named after him at one point; Dr Grinspoon is a pure sativa heirloom strain that grows very tall with large, thin sativa-typical leaves.
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The Australian band Lester Grinspoon are named after him, due to his cannabis stance.
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Lester Grinspoon contributed a chapter to Jefferson Fish's book How to Legalize Drugs.
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Lester Grinspoon discussed the way marijuana helped his young son while he was dying from leukemia in the 1970s, completely eliminating the horrible nausea and vomiting he experienced after each of his chemotherapy treatments and, thereby, making the final year and a half of the boy's life far more comfortable, for his son, and for Lester Grinspoon and his wife by not having to endure the pain of witnessing their son suffer.
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Lester Grinspoon appeared in the Canadian documentary The Union: The Business Behind Getting High and discussed the pharmaceutical characteristics of marinol, as well as his writing experiences with Carl Sagan.
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Lester Grinspoon appeared in the 2011 Montana PBS documentary Clearing the Smoke: The Science of Cannabis.