Born in 1953, Doblin grew up in a ConservativeJewish family in suburban Chicago. He is the first of four children to pediatrician Morton Doblin and schoolteacher Arline Doblin. He has three younger siblings, Bruce, Sharon, and Stuart Doblin. From 1975 until 1982, Doblin owned and operated a company called Braxas Construction, located in the Sarasota, Florida area, which specialized in relocating houses. While living in Florida, he adopted and raised a Timberwolf named Phaedrus. He received his doctorate in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he wrote his dissertation on the regulation of the medical uses of psychedelics and marijuana and his Master's thesis on a survey of oncologists about smoked marijuana vs. the oral THC pill in nausea control for cancer patients. He currently resides in Boston with his wife, Lynne Doblin. They have three children, Eden, Lilah, and Eliora Doblin. Doblin obtained a psychology degree from New College of Florida in 1987 and earned a doctorate in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Universityin 2001. His undergraduate thesis at New College of Florida was a 25-year follow-up to the classic Good Friday Experiment, which evaluated the potential of psychedelic drugs to catalyze religious experiences. He also conducted a thirty-four year follow-up study to Timothy Leary’s Concord Prison Experiment. Rick studied with Dr. Stanislav Grof and was among the first to be certified as a Holotropic Breathwork practitioner. He co-founded Earth Metabolic Design Laboratories in 1984 to support psychedelic research and Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies in 1986 with the goal of making MDMA an FDA-approved medicine. Rick Doblin's life is profiled in former Washington PostMagazine editor Tom Shroder's book Acid Test: LSD, Ecstasy, and the Power to Heal.
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
Doblin is the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a non-profit research organization established in 1986.
