First Smoke of the Day: The Podcast That Turned Cannabis Interviews Into an Industry Reunion

First Smoke of the Day started in 2021 as a weekly interview show and has grown into one of the cannabis industry's most-listened-to podcasts — 228 episodes and counting, hosted by Blackleaf (Lance) and PackGods (Cody), two Florida-based cannabis brand owners who built the show around the same access they already had as operators. Both hosts run their own cannabis brands alongside the podcast, which is part of why the interviews land the way they do: cultivators, hashmakers, breeders, and brand owners tend to open up more to two people who are also in the room competing with them.

The format is straightforward and effective: long-form, one-on-one conversations released weekly and syndicated everywhere — Apple, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, iHeart. Recent episodes have covered a strain-tasting marathon ("We Smoked 100 Strains to Find the Best"), a grower's account of leaving California with 250 plants in a U-Haul with police in pursuit, and a Michigan-versus-Oregon hash rivalry — the kind of specific, insider-only stories that don't surface on a corporate cannabis panel.

The show doesn't stay confined to a feed. Blackleaf and PackGods throw an annual "Family Reunion" event — the 2024 edition packed Hollywood's Penthouse Day Club with vendors including Parlay, The Kush Factory, and LA Family Farms, plus an aerialist and $30 eighths that sold out within the hour — alongside East Coast meetups including a yearly 4/20 brunch in New York City. It's turned a podcast feed into something closer to an industry reunion, which tracks with how the hosts describe it: a chance for people who spend their lives in the garden to actually get out and network.

At 4.7 stars across 200-plus ratings and four-plus years of weekly episodes, First Smoke of the Day has built its reputation the direct way — not by being slick, but by having two actual operators asking the questions other operators actually want answered.