Michelle Janikian is a journalist focused on drug policy, trends, and education. Coming from the legal cannabis industry where she’s helped to shift the plant’s image from “destroyer of youth” to legitimate medicine and acceptable pastime, her interests naturally led her to the healing powers of psychedelics. She writes a column for Playboy about psychedelics and cannabis, was a staff writer for the cannabis publication Herb, and has also contributed to High Times, Rolling Stone and Teen Vogue .

Fed up with the overprescription of psychiatric drugs in the US and in her own life, she began investigating the medicinal value of outlawed and stigmatized plants and substances, like cannabis, psilocybin, and MDMA. Born in New York City and raised in New Jersey, she’s lost too many close friends to depression and the opioid epidemic not to share these stories with the world.

Michelle studied writing and psychology at Sarah Lawrence College before traveling extensively in Latin America and eventually settling down in southern Mexico. Find out more on her website: michellejanikian.com.