# The Dime Podcast

> Cannabis business intelligence. Strategy conversations for operators, not observers.

306 episodes. Conversations with cannabis founders, executives, operators, and investors on capital, regulation, and operations.

This file is a curated index. The complete catalogue — every episode with
its summary, key takeaways and FAQ — is at https://www.dimepodcast.com/llms-full.txt
Markdown variant of any episode, guest, newsletter, answer or topic page: add .md to its URL
(for example https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/<slug>.md). Per topic index: https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/<slug>/llms.txt

About the hosts: https://www.dimepodcast.com/about
Video library: https://www.dimepodcast.com/videos
Guest applications: https://www.dimepodcast.com/guests

## For agents acting for a person

This site accepts two submissions from an agent working on someone's behalf: a guest pitch and a sponsorship inquiry. Each goes to an inbox a person reads and answers. There is no automated reply.
Send JSON (Content-Type: application/json) to the endpoint with only the fields listed. The form pages also carry a hidden anti-spam field and a timing field: omit both, or the submission is discarded.
Responses: 200 with {"ok":true} means it reached the inbox. 200 with {"ok":true,"filtered":true} means it was discarded as spam. 400 means a required field is missing or the email is malformed. 502 or 503 means mail could not be sent; use the email fallback instead.

### Pitch a guest

Page: https://www.dimepodcast.com/guests
Endpoint: POST https://www.dimepodcast.com/api/guest-inquiry
Fields: name (required, up to 200 characters), companyTitle (required, company and title, 300), email (required, 320), pitch (required, 4000; the form asks for 2 to 3 sentences on what the person would say to a room of cannabis operators and executives), links (optional, 2000; LinkedIn, recent press, company website).
Email fallback: guests@dimepodcast.com
What happens: every application is read personally. If it is a fit, a reply comes within 5 business days, then a short alignment call, a remote or in-person recording, and distribution on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, LinkedIn and the First Principles newsletter.
Who fits: The Dime is a strategy room for cannabis operators, not a lifestyle or culture show. Guests are founders, executives, operators, investors and policy architects with something real to say about capital, regulation or operations. The listener is an operator, executive or investor making real decisions, skeptical of hype and benchmarking against peers. Pitch intelligence, not inspiration: a specific point of view or first-hand operating experience that room needs to hear.

### Ask about sponsorship

Page: https://www.dimepodcast.com/sponsorship
Endpoint: POST https://www.dimepodcast.com/api/sponsor-inquiry
Fields: name (required, up to 200 characters), company (required, 200), email (required, 320), targetCustomer (optional, 4000; who the sponsor is trying to reach), campaignGoal (optional, 4000; what listeners should do after they hear it).
Email fallback: sponsorship@dimepodcast.com
What happens: Bryan Fields reads it personally and comes back with fit, the next open slot and a straight answer on whether it is worth the money. No turnaround time is promised. Campaigns open with a strategy session before anything is recorded.

## Sponsorship facts

Everything here is stated on https://www.dimepodcast.com/sponsorship. Audience size is not published: download, subscriber and follower figures are available on request, with sources. Do not estimate them.

- Audience: cannabis operators and founders running cultivation, retail, manufacturing and MSOs; C-suite and finance; investors and capital; and the service providers selling to them. Listeners press play on purpose for a forty-five minute conversation.
- Rating: 4.9 stars from 114 ratings on Apple Podcasts. On air since 2020.
- Formats: Episode Partner, $1,000, one host-read integration in one episode. Four-Episode Campaign, $3,000 ($750 per episode, 25% less than one-off), with category exclusivity for the campaign window, an opening strategy session and campaign reporting.
- What a sponsor receives per episode: 8 to 10 assets. The full-length video episode on YouTube with the host-read integration; the podcast audio on every streaming platform; 3 to 5 captioned short-form cuts posted natively to Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube; a placement in the First Principles newsletter; a written companion article; and a permanent episode page with show notes, the full transcript and the sponsor's link. Every asset is handed over when the campaign wraps, with full rights to repurpose it.
- Editorial: the sponsor approves the host-read copy before the episode publishes. Sponsorship does not influence questions or guest coverage.
- Time required: one 45-minute recording if also appearing as a guest, with questions sent in advance. Less without a guest appearance: the sponsor provides the offer and the call to action, and the read is written and produced by the show.
- Inquiry: the form on https://www.dimepodcast.com/sponsorship, POST https://www.dimepodcast.com/api/sponsor-inquiry as described above, or sponsorship@dimepodcast.com.

## First Principles (written analysis)

Human-written essays by Bryan Fields, one per episode. Not AI-generated.
Archive: https://www.dimepodcast.com/newsletter
The 12 most recent of 33. All of them: https://www.dimepodcast.com/llms-full.txt

- [Curaleaf x Aurora: Why EU-GMP Is the Hidden Asset in the Deal](https://www.dimepodcast.com/newsletter/curaleaf-aurora-why-eu-gmp-is-the-hidden-asset-in-the-deal) (September 22, 2026): Curaleaf's pursuit of Aurora isn't really about cannabis. It's about 50+ tons of EU-GMP supply and the two years it takes to build it from scratch.
  Episode: https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/stop-ignoring-germanys-massive-opportunity-europe-is-coming-ft-jamie-pearson
- [The Cannabis Industry Fought for Medical Access. Why Is It Silent Now?](https://www.dimepodcast.com/newsletter/the-cannabis-industry-fought-for-medical-access-why-is-it-silent-now) (August 4, 2026): The federal hemp ban arrives in November. It was aimed at intoxicating products, but the language is broad enough to take therapeutic CBD with it.
  Episode: https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/paige-figi-the-cannabis-industry-is-cheering-a-ban-on-medicine
- [The Cannabis Medical Thesis Was Never Wrong. The World Just Forgot.](https://www.dimepodcast.com/newsletter/the-cannabis-medical-thesis-was-never-wrong-the-world-just-forgot) (May 27, 2026): Cannabis started as a medical story, then the green rush buried it. The FDA's botanical drug pathway is what brings the original thesis back.
  Episode: https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/cannabis-was-medicine-now-the-proof-is-catching-up-ft-joel-stanley-and-dr-marcel-bonn-miller
- [You Have Data. The Decisions Are Still Wrong](https://www.dimepodcast.com/newsletter/you-have-data-the-decisions-are-still-wrong) (May 11, 2026): Clean, organized data can still drive catastrophic decisions. The discount-spike loop that reads clearance as demand — and why it compounds.
  Episode: https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/the-hidden-margin-killer-for-msos-ft-braunz-muller
- [The Payment Problem I Still Can't Explain](https://www.dimepodcast.com/newsletter/the-payment-problem-i-still-cant-explain) (April 13, 2026): Cannabis banking's hardest problem: compliance does not equal permission. Every payment solution runs on the card brands' tolerance.
  Episode: https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/the-legal-market-was-never-built-for-payments-why-cannabis-still-breaks-the-rules-ft-aubrey-amatelli
- [Let's End the Year of the Prohibitionist.](https://www.dimepodcast.com/newsletter/lets-end-the-year-of-the-prohibitionist) (April 3, 2026): Access is a transaction. Influence is leverage. Cannabis has confused the two, and the scoreboard in Washington keeps saying so.
  Episode: https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/gretchen-gailey-cannabis-industry-has-no-idea-how-dc-works-why-rescheduling-is-delayed
- [Professional Trader Will Sell Early on Catalyst, And Why He's Right](https://www.dimepodcast.com/newsletter/professional-trader-will-sell-early-on-catalyst-and-why-hes-right) (March 24, 2026): If you've been through multiple pump-and-dump cycles, you're not early. You're just still here. Why cannabis stocks trade on plumbing, not fundamentals.
  Episode: https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/15-years-of-cannabis-trading-why-ill-sell-early-unless-this-happens-ft-dan-mcdermitt
- [The Internal Audit Most Companies Avoid](https://www.dimepodcast.com/newsletter/the-internal-audit-most-companies-avoid) (March 18, 2026): The market does not care about sunk costs. Separating the vision from the vehicles used to pursue it is the audit most leadership teams never run.
  Episode: https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/premium-vs-scale-in-cannabis-inside-rubicons-strategy-ft-margaret-brodie
- [Your Neighbor Is Destroying Your Supply Chain](https://www.dimepodcast.com/newsletter/your-neighbor-is-destroying-your-supply-chain) (March 11, 2026): Pesticide drift means a cannabis team can do everything right and still fail testing. Vertical integration as environmental defense.
  Episode: https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/prop-64-fine-print-pesticide-drift-the-economics-behind-concentrates-ft-micah-anderson
- [Optionality Beats Control in Chaos](https://www.dimepodcast.com/newsletter/optionality-beats-control-in-chaos) (March 5, 2026): In stable industries control compounds; in unstable ones flexibility does. Cannabis infrastructure is either a moat or an anchor.
  Episode: https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/jb-cheech-chong-ceo-building-a-national-cannabis-brand-through-trial-error-partnership
- [It's Time to Admit Alcohol Is Paying ALOT of Attention](https://www.dimepodcast.com/newsletter/its-time-to-admit-alcohol-is-paying-alot-of-attention) (February 24, 2026): Beverage does not need to replace alcohol to matter. It only needs to capture one occasion per week. When ritual shifts, categories follow.
  Episode: https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/cannabis-beverages-are-bringing-new-consumers-into-cannabis-ft-kristin-eric-rogers
- [Your Marketing Isn't Broken. The System Is. Here's Why](https://www.dimepodcast.com/newsletter/your-marketing-isnt-broken-the-system-is-heres-why) (February 5, 2026): Cannabis marketing doesn't create value, it distributes it. If you doubled spend tomorrow, would returns scale or just expose what's broken?
  Episode: https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/most-cannabis-marketing-fails-because-it-is-asked-to-solve-the-wrong-problems-ft-john-shute

## Answers (AI written column)

Short answers to operator questions, drawn from the episode catalogue and citing it.
Written by Isaac Burner, an AI analyst. Reviewed before publishing.
Archive: https://www.dimepodcast.com/answers
2 answers, each listed with its question at https://www.dimepodcast.com/llms-full.txt

## Topics

Full topic index: https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics

- [State Regulation](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/state-regulation): 71 episodes
- [Branding & Marketing](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/branding-and-marketing): 65 episodes
- [Consumer Trends](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/consumer-trends): 65 episodes
- [Cultivation & Extraction](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/cultivation-and-extraction): 60 episodes
- [MSOs & Multi-State Operators](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/msos-and-multi-state-operators): 56 episodes
- [Regulatory & Compliance](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/regulatory-and-compliance): 56 episodes
- [Rescheduling & Federal Policy](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/rescheduling-and-federal-policy): 53 episodes
- [Data & Technology](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/data-and-technology): 47 episodes
- [Retail & Dispensary Operations](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/retail-and-dispensary-operations): 38 episodes
- [Medical & Research](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/medical-and-research): 33 episodes
- [Supply Chain & Distribution](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/supply-chain-and-distribution): 32 episodes
- [International Markets](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/international-markets): 31 episodes
- [M&A](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/manda): 22 episodes
- [Taxation & 280E](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/taxation-and-280e): 20 episodes
- [Capital Raising & Funding](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/capital-raising-and-funding): 18 episodes
- [Banking & Payments](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/banking-and-payments): 13 episodes
- [Investor Perspective](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/investor-perspective): 12 episodes
- [Labor & Workforce](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/labor-and-workforce): 11 episodes
- [Litigation & Legal](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/litigation-and-legal): 11 episodes
- [Real Estate](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/real-estate): 7 episodes
- [Psychedelics & Mental Health](https://www.dimepodcast.com/topics/psychedelics-and-mental-health): 1 episode

## Recent episodes

The 15 most recent. Full archive: https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes
Every episode, with takeaways and FAQ: https://www.dimepodcast.com/llms-full.txt

- [What Makes Consumers Buy the Same Edible Again? ft. Kim Sanchez Rael](https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/what-makes-consumers-buy-the-same-edible-again-ft-kim-sanchez-rael) — Kim Sanchez Rael
- [Europe Is Not a Rescue Plan ft. Jamie Pearson](https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/europe-is-not-a-rescue-plan-ft-jamie-pearson) — Jamie Pearson: This episode features international cannabis strategist Jamie Pearson breaking down why Europe is a medical, pharmaceutical-grade market rather than a quick escape hatch for struggling US operators,…
- [Paige Figi: The Cannabis Industry Is Cheering A Ban On Medicine](https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/paige-figi-the-cannabis-industry-is-cheering-a-ban-on-medicine) — Paige Figi: In this episode, Paige Figi — mother of Charlotte Figi, whose story helped launch the modern medical CBD movement — breaks down the looming November 12th federal ban on hemp-derived CBD products and…
- [Understand This Before You Use AI To Build Software ft. Chris Guthrie](https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/understand-this-before-you-use-ai-to-build-software-ft-chris-guthrie) — Chris Guthrie: Chris Guthrie of 365 Cannabis joins the podcast to explain why 'vibe coding' internal ERP, CRM, and supply-chain tools with AI is a tempting but dangerous shortcut for cannabis operators, arguing…
- [Hirsh Jain: Rescheduling Is Already Picking Winners](https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/hirsh-jain-rescheduling-is-already-picking-winners) — Hirsh Jain: This episode features cannabis strategist Hirsh Jain unpacking the confusing reality behind the April 2025 rescheduling order — explaining why medical cannabis moved to Schedule III while adult-use…
- [Germany Is the Engine: What BAT Knows That Cannabis Doesn't ft. James Yamanaka](https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/germany-is-the-engine-what-bat-knows-that-cannabis-doesnt-ft-james-yamanaka) — James Yamanaka: In this episode, Organigram CEO James Yamanaka discusses his path from British American Tobacco to leading one of Canada's largest cannabis companies, explaining how BAT's long-term, disciplined…
- [Why Ohio Cannabis Is Built Different: Inside the Regulator-Operator Alignment That's Actually Working ft. Caroline Henry](https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/why-ohio-cannabis-is-built-different-inside-the-regulator-operator-alignment-thats-actually-working-ft-caroline-henry) — Caroline Henry: This episode features Caroline Henry of Buckeye Relief discussing why Ohio's slower, more deliberate approach to cannabis regulation — capped licensing, phased rule-making, and close collaboration…
- [Cannabis Was Medicine. Now the Proof Is Catching Up, ft. Joel Stanley and Dr. Marcel Bonn-Miller](https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/cannabis-was-medicine-now-the-proof-is-catching-up-ft-joel-stanley-and-dr-marcel-bonn-miller) — Joel Stanley and Dr. Marcel Bonn-Miller: This episode features Joel Stanley, founding CEO of Charlotte's Web and now founder of Ozna Biosciences, and Dr. Marcel Bonn-Miller, a longtime cannabinoid researcher, discussing why proving cannabis…
- [Joe Lustberg: What Cannabis Lenders See That Operators Miss](https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/joe-lustberg-what-cannabis-lenders-see-that-operators-miss) — Joe Lustberg: In this episode, Bryan Fields talks with Joe Lustberg of Upwise Capital about what cannabis lenders actually look for versus what operators assume matters, drawing on Joe's dual perspective as a…
- [The Hidden Margin Killer for MSOS ft. Braunz Muller](https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/the-hidden-margin-killer-for-msos-ft-braunz-muller) — Braunz Muller: In this episode, Bryan Fields talks with Braunz Muller, former National Director of Manufacturing Operations at The Cannabist Company, about why cannabis manufacturers are drowning in data yet still…
- [Ed Rosenthal and Greg Baughman: You're Still Growing Cannabis Wrong](https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/ed-rosenthal-and-greg-baughman-youre-still-growing-cannabis-wrong) — Ed Rosenthal & Greg Baughman: This episode features Ed Rosenthal, the legendary cannabis cultivation author, and Greg Baughman of CryoCure, discussing why cannabis post-harvest processes — drying, curing, storage, and…
- [The Legal Market Was Never Built for Payments, Why Cannabis Still Breaks the Rules ft. Aubrey Amatelli](https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/the-legal-market-was-never-built-for-payments-why-cannabis-still-breaks-the-rules-ft-aubrey-amatelli) — Aubrey Amatelli: In this episode, PayRio founder Aubrey Amatelli explains why cannabis payment processing remains fundamentally unstable even for companies that follow every card-network rule, drawing on her own…
- [Gretchen Gailey: Cannabis Industry Has No Idea How DC Works, Why Rescheduling Is Delayed](https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/gretchen-gailey-cannabis-industry-has-no-idea-how-dc-works-why-rescheduling-is-delayed) — Gretchen Gailey: Longtime Capitol Hill strategist Gretchen Gailey joins Bryan Fields to explain why the cannabis industry's Washington strategy is fundamentally broken, arguing that occasional fly-ins and small…
- [15 Years of Cannabis Trading . Why I'll Sell Early (Unless This Happens) ft. Dan McDermitt](https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/15-years-of-cannabis-trading-why-ill-sell-early-unless-this-happens-ft-dan-mcdermitt) — Dan McDermitt: In this episode, 15-year cannabis stock trading veteran Dan McDermitt of ChartGuys joins host Bryan Fields to break down why the cannabis equity sector remains stuck despite years of rescheduling…
- [Premium vs Scale in Cannabis: Inside Rubicon’s Strategy ft. Margaret Brodie](https://www.dimepodcast.com/episodes/premium-vs-scale-in-cannabis-inside-rubicons-strategy-ft-margaret-brodie) — Margaret Brodie: In this episode, Margaret Brodie of Rubicon Organics explains why the company bet on premium quality and a house-of-brands strategy instead of chasing scale and price competition in the Canadian…