Howard Kornfeld, MD

Howard Kornfeld, MD, 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 was board certified in Emergency Medicine for 40 years. He graduated from the Northwestern University Medical School in 1975 as part of the Honors Program in Medical Education. He serves on the clinical faculty and has taught in the pain and addiction fellowship and other programs at UCSF. He is a nationally recognized and published leader in the utilization of buprenorphine (also known as Suboxone™) for chronic pain and opiate addiction. Dr. Kornfeld is also known as a pioneer of the psychedelic medicine field, having convened early investigators with FDA approved studies in pivotal research and policy conferences—the 1994/1995 Pacific Symposia on Psychedelic Drugs—while serving as a visiting physician-in-residence at the world-famous Esalen Institute. Dr. Kornfeld is also considered an expert in alcohol, benzodiazepine, cocaine, and stimulant addiction and developed the Recovery Without Walls program more than twenty years ago as a new model for out-patient care attracting referrals widely and inspiring others in the field. He has always been guided by the movements towards integrative and holistic physical and mental health. He was a Delegate in 1981 at the First Congress of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the organization that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. In 2022, he attended the Nuclear Ban Forum in Vienna to support the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. He provided early assistance to civil liberties organizations in the 1990’s in their lawsuit that led the federal judiciary to forbid the Attorney General of California’s use of the gas chamber in death penalty cases, as cruel and unusual punishment. He continues to study the role of societal addiction as a driving force in the global polycrisis of fossil fuel and armaments dependence, inequity, and biodiversity loss. In this regard, he has continued to serve as an advisor to the International Bateson Institute.