Mary Carreón


About Mary

Mary Carreón is an independent journalist, editor, copywriter, and podcaster from Southern California. Her work has appeared in Insider, Billboard, KCRW/NPR, High Times Magazine, DoubleBlind Magazine, Forbes, OC Weekly, LA Weekly, and many other publications.

Mary reports on Schedule I drugs, culture, the environment, and often where these worlds intersect. Her reporting also touches on the underbelly of wellness culture trends.

Mary's written stories on pesticides; nuclear waste; local water politics; cannabis and psychedelics drug policy; the sustainability of cannabis cultivation; hemp "meat" and other alternative meats; the sustainability and conservation of Palo Santo; labor issues in the crystal trade; the collapse of California's cannabis industry; buying drugs on the internet; the emergence of new music genres for the use of psychedelic therapy; the mad honey trade; how the DEA believes it has the power to determine the legitimacy and sincerity of entheogenic religions; and much more.

Most of Mary's work aims to humanize drug culture and explore the real-world impacts of drug policies that impact access and the environment. As a third-generation Mexican and Guatemalan, she's also dedicated to amplifying Latine and BIPOC voices, issues, and perspectives.

HyphaeLeaks •

An Open Letter to the Biggest Psychedelic Gathering In History

We are writing this letter on behalf of the Hyphae Leaks and Oakland Hyphae community, the largest BIPOC-run psychedelics organization in the US, regarding the Psychedelic Science Conference. Everyone in the psychedelics community is talking about it — makes sense, considering it's billed as the largest psychedelic gathering in history! But there's an inherent issue we need to address with MAPS: Only wealthy people can afford to attend this event. How can it be the biggest psychedelic gathering in history, then?
Leaf Nation •

Viva La Raza: CA Leaf Magazine Equality Issue, May 2022

[PG 26] It’s clear the drug war is a scam. The pop history of Reagan’s “Just Say No” fails to paint a complete portrait of America’s anti-drug ethos. It even predates Nixon’s vapid fear of LSD and naked hippies, and Harry Anslinger’s racist weed propaganda of the ‘30s. America’s drug phobia – and specific hatred of Cannabis – began when an influx of Mexicans migrated into the U.S. to flee the Mexican Revolution in 1910. Many brought Cannabis with them over the border, making it a target of racist demonization by the U.S. Government.
theLAnd •

Half-Baked: The Worst Celebrity Weed Brands

In the 2010s, there was a moment when every celebrity was a DJ. A decade later, the obnoxious trend du jour demands that every weed-adjacent celebrity have their own vanity weed brand. This fact shouldn’t surprise anyone paying attention to the swift corporate appropriation of a once-outlaw industry. After all, few things perpetuate the get-money-at-all-costs, late-capitalist mentality like celebrity culture. In cannabis, entertainers see yet another opportunity to make a branded buck.
Friends With Benefits •

Season of the Witch: An Oral History of Crypto Coven

The High Witches open up the project's unlikely beginnings, how they collectively conjured such a detailed world, and breaking the spell of the male gaze. Aletheia and Nyx, two artists who work in tech, were bleaching each other’s roots during the 2021 lockdown when they noticed a new Twitter fad unfolding: People were uploading NFTs of Apes and pixelated punks as their profile photos. They started exploring various NFT projects, but none resonated with them personally, let alone enough to use as an avatar.
Billboard •

The Psychedelic Renaissance Is Ushering In a New Genre Of Electronic Music

I pulled a black eye mask over my eyes and placed a pair of sound-canceling headphones over my ears. The sound of rain falling over piano notes and a sporadic symbol rang in my ears as a nurse practitioner at Field Trip Health, a legal ketamine clinic in Los Angeles, injected 35 milligrams of FDA-approved ketamine into my left arm. The sensation of moving backward on a slow roller coaster consumed my body, as I descended to the bottom floor of a black abyss. I entered the upside-down.
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