High Times has learned that Paul Tokin, an early online cannabis vlogger behind the YouTube channel Tokin Daily, passed away in December 2023. In an interview before his passing Paul explains that his YouTube channel, which began in 2006, started with videos that showed processes around growing cannabis.
“Prior to doing Tokin Daily I started uploading content on the internet, just pictures and stuff on web forums in the early 2000s, and YouTube came along so I started uploading YouTube videos in 2006,” he says in the interview. “For a long time it was just kinda every now and then I’d upload a video of the plants I was growing. That’s when I started doing the low stress training videos and just basic stuff because I liked sharing information. So when I learned how to clone, when I built my first cloner I was like, ‘Fuck yeah I’m gonna make a video of all this and show everybody else what I did.’”
Over the years Paul’s videos grew in popularity, with some reaching as many as 300,000 views. In a confessional video filmed in 2010, he explains that he started smoking weed when he was 22 years old and used cannabis as a medication for a few conditions.
“One of the absolute best things about weed is that it makes those everyday, tedious, redundant jobs a lot less tedious and redundant, it makes them almost fun to do,” he says, recommending cannabis for doing the dishes. “A lot of life is just that boredom and weed just kind of floats you through that.”
Paul was initially based in Denver, Colorado, but moved to Hawaii in 2015. Back around 2011 he worked as a budtender in Colorado and connected with hashmaker Nikka T.
“Paul and I came up with the original term Solventless Hash Oil or SHO together while seshing some of my newest creations from the lab for his YouTube channel which was one of the largest and most respected cannabis content YouTube channels at the time,” Nikka T says in a tribute post in Instagram. “Paul was the first public cannabis influencer to me. He was always very poised, joyous and kind hearted in his uniquely Paul ways.”
Fellow cannabis vlogger Coral Reefer also posted a tribute to Paul on Instagram following his death.
“Rest in peace and great ganja fields Paul,” Reefer wrote. “Paul Tokin changed so many of our lives. I’ve recently found out he’s passed away, I’m heartbroken, and so grateful for the time he gave me and my channel years and years ago. Take care of each other.”
