20 Oct Talking Gourds: Dr. Kornfeld at Telluride Library 10/26!
Telluride Institute’s Talking Gourds program and Telluride’s Wilkinson Public Library are welcoming former resident/town consultant Dr. Howard Kornfeld, MD. He will speak on his ecological work in Telluride, as well as world peace and nuclear disarmament. Event takes place Friday, 10/23, 4:30 pm.
Dr. Kornfeld will also give a short talk at the monthly Peace March on the County Courthouse Steps Saturday Oct. 24th at noon.
Both events are free and open to the public.
For more information on poetry contests and Talking Gourds programs, visit the website www.tellurideinstitute.org/talking-gourds. For questions about the event, text 970-729-0220 or email Goodtimes at art@tellurideinstitute.org
Go here for more on Talking Gourds.
Images, courtesy Telluride Institute.
“It’s a real joy to be coming back to Telluride,” explained Dr. Kornfeld. “I lived there in the mid-1980s, as well as some time in Grand Junction and Boulder. I was doing emergency medicine work and, thanks to Art Goodtimes, was quickly educated about the local challenges to the alpine ecology posed by the mining activity in past decades.
“Learning about how to safeguard the tailings as well as keeping the aquifer healthy was a fascinating ecological extension of my background in human health,” continued Kornfeld. “I enjoyed many aspects of Telluride, including attending the Mushroom Festival three years in a row. Prior to living in Colorado, I was a Delegate in 1981 at the First Congress of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), and the organization was given the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.
After returning to California, Kornfeld became active in the field of addiction medicine and an early adopter and innovator in the use of the medication, buprenorphine which has significantly improved the treatment of opiate addiction and chronic pain.
“I was also blessed to help organize several policy meetings at Esalen Institute called the ‘Pacific Symposia on Psychedelic Drugs’ and became lifelong friends with Anna and Sasha Shulgin.”
The founder of Recovery Without Walls, a private medical practice created over 20 years ago in Mill Valley, California, as a new model for outpatient addiction care, Kornfeld has decades of experience in addiction and pain medicine. He is a nationally recognized and published leader in the use of buprenorphine (also known as Suboxone™) for chronic pain and opioid addiction.
Kornfeld is a Diplomate in Pain Medicine, recognized by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. He has helped train many fellow physicians at University of California in San Francisco, where he still serves on the clinical faculty.
Kornfeld ‘sties to Telluride run deep.
In 1986, while living in town, he published “An Environmental Report to the Town of Telluride and its Citizens,” drawing on his research into the Idarado lawsuit of the time and, more broadly, into the potential damage from local tailings piles and the risk of acidic drainage reaching the aquifer through area mine shafts. The open letter was quoted and the issue covered extensively in the San Miguel Journal, then under managing editor, well, me, Goodtimes.
Telluride subsequently retained Kornfeld as a consultant. His recommendation? Execute a more active approach to curbing the environmental and public health risks of these contaminants. Following a federal court ruling in 1989 (State of Colo. v. Idarado Mining Co.), a Remedial Action Plan was finalized in 1992 ordering the company to re-contour and plant vegetation over the massive gray tailings piles, and restore aquatic habitats in the San Miguel River watershed.
Dr. Kornfeld is also a pioneer of the psychedelic medicine field.
While serving as a visiting physician-in-residence at the Esalen Institute, he convened early investigators conducting FDA-approved studies at pivotal research and policy gatherings, including the 1994 and 1995 “Pacific Symposia on Psychedelic Drugs.”
As mentioned above, after entering addiction medicine, Kornfeld was one of the younger delegates at the First Congress of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in 1981. The organization went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.
In 1985, Kornfeld attended the 26th Congress of IPPNW where he presented his thinking about addiction and nuclear weapons proliferation, tying in the work of Gregory Bateson, former California governor Jerry Brown, and emeritus psychiatry professor Rober Walsh MD (author of the 1984 Shambhala Press Book Staying Alive: The Psychology of Human Survival.)”
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