Source: The New York Times.
In my just-prior post, I asked why the sidewalks reek of marijuana smoke in some parts of York City. Vastly more than, say, the smell of cigarette smoke. This, despite almost never actually seeing anyone smoking dope, when I was in Manhattan last week.
It was a conundrum. How could the sidewalk air be saturated with the odor of marijuana, but actual, observable marijuana smokers were few and far between?
I think the answer to that riddle is simple: Burning marijuana really stinks. That is, the odor of burning marijuana is potent. It takes a large volume of fresh air to dilute it down to the point where you can no longer smell it. Turning that on its head, a lungful of marijuana smoke can stink up a far larger volume of air than the equivalent amount of cigarette smoke.
Based on a single measurement, casually reported in a single article, using “odor units”, the odor of marijuana smoke was maybe 300 times as potent as the odor of cigarette smoke. Continue reading Post #1869: Manhattan marijuana miasma, part 2