In America, the smell of a joint can mean a citation, an eviction or nothing at all. It depends on who’s holding it.
The smell of weed has never been neutral. It has always had a starting point. A “depends how,” a “depends when” and, fundamentally, a “depends who.” On the urban map of the United States, smoke functions as an almost instant detector of social status: a boundary separating respectable citizens from the usual suspects. Far from democratizing consumption, legalization has refined certain mechanisms of exclusion, turning the sense of smell into the armed wing of aesthetic capitalism. Does the smell of your joint give away your social class?
And so, while the corporate universe rakes in millions from odorless extracts and designer devices born from the tech (& ascetic & accelerationist) brains of Silicon Valley, the good old smell of a joint still trades high on the sprawling market of prejudice. Historically, the state’s repressive apparatus has used the sense of smell as a tool of selective control. You, yes; not you; not that one either. Nobody, yes. Everybody, yes. It always depends on who.
Let’s talk about what needs to be talked about: lighting up on the sidewalk can be a declaration of rebellion or a sentence, depending on your ZIP code. The consequences of being detected by smell vary dramatically with the smoker’s economic resources, creating a reality in which the brunt of the stigma falls, pretty much always, on the most vulnerable. And the stakes of criminalization remain enormous: an estimated 3,000 people are serving long-term to life sentences in federal prisons for “marijuana-related offenses,” according to data from Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP).
Against this backdrop, Jimi Devine, a journalist, activist, cannabis critic and judge at some of the world’s most important cannabis competitions, breaks down this dynamic with precision: “Regardless of the legal status of cannabis, its odor has always been weaponized against the poor. For decades, getting caught with cannabis in federal housing would cause you a lot more headaches than if you own a home or in many cases any multi-unit housing.”
Regardless of the legal status of cannabis, its odor has always been weaponized against the poor.
Jimi Devine
Devine argues that this olfactory persecution proved “one of the mechanisms that filled our correction system at the local, state and federal level with nonviolent offenders.” Although the landscape today seems less aggressive (at least, well, that’s how it appears on the surface), Devine warns that these dynamics “still exist in many communities, with a disproportionate number of cannabis violations coming from the lowest rungs of the income bracket.”
Class is not the only line the smell draws. Race runs right alongside it. Black people were 3.64 times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana possession in 2018, despite using cannabis at similar rates, according to a 2020 ACLU report. In some states, the disparity was more than nine to one.
3.64x
How much more likely Black people were than white people to be arrested for marijuana possession in 2018, despite similar rates of use.
Source: ACLU, 2020
~3,000
People estimated to be serving long-term to life sentences in federal prisons for marijuana-related offenses.
Source: SSDP
The class divide in the modern era also manifests as a kind of moral superiority among more affluent groups, who assume that access to consumption is a privilege tied to economic success. According to Devine, part of the divide lies in “the ruling class feeling like they’ve earned the right to smoke cannabis and people below them need to work harder to reach a socioeconomic class deserving of the same rights as them.” This perspective transcends regulatory frameworks. A warning that hurts to look at too closely.
Paradoxically, legalization has created certain distortions in the market that complicate access to the highest-quality weed. “I think the wildest part of the class divide in cannabis is a lot of the wealthiest people aren’t going to the club,” Devine says. “The bottlenecks of regulation simply make it hard for the cannabis in a dispensary to compete with AAA flower from the street.”
However, the risk involved in accessing that elite material is not the same for everyone: lower-income people who try to get flower of that quality face much greater legal risk, since, as Devine puts it, “they can’t afford the quality of lawyer in the event of worst case scenario, even if it is just simple possession case.” Here howls another of the greatest asymmetries in the cannabis cosmos: representation in the event of legal trouble.
On the other hand, the perception of smell is also mediated by urban infrastructure and the ability to exercise the right to privacy. Those who live in high-value private spaces have the tools to, let’s say, manage their surroundings, while working-class communities must absorb the impacts of prohibition and forced coexistence in shared spaces.
On that point, David Downs, a San Francisco-based journalist and author, former senior editor of Leafly and the first cannabis editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, adds nuance to the idea that discretion is an asset exclusive to wealth, suggesting a more complex and uncomfortable reality. “Poor places endure way less enforcement than they used to for the smell of weed alone. Arguably, a poor person’s right to stink has never been higher,” Downs says, drawing a contrast with high-income areas, where residents do not tolerate the smell and have the economic (and also political, we know how this works) resources to enforce their preferences. “In San Francisco, you can’t smoke in Salesforce Park,” he says. “No one will say anything if you light up in a park in the Bayview.”
Arguably, a poor person’s right to stink has never been higher.
David Downs
From Downs’ perspective, social pressure and stigma increase as you climb the socioeconomic pyramid. “In general, the higher you go in society, the more cannabis stigma you will encounter. As you get richer, you have more to lose from negative perceptions of your pot use, or any drug use,” he argues. His example: Elon Musk, who, Downs says, “got drug tested for a year for taking one hit on Rogan.”
The aversion to the smell, Downs argues, has deep biological and evolutionary roots. “Cannabis unfortunately gets earmarked by most olfactory systems as a threat vector,” he says. “Weed smells like a skunk is nearby.” That conditioning intertwines with the cultural baggage of prohibition. Downs points to Larry Sloman’s history Reefer Madness, recalling a time when prohibitionists were “literally calling cannabis users demonic, sulfur-emitting devils.” Those prejudices remain alive in some segments of the population, reinforced by the fact that adult-use cannabis remains federally illegal.
Today, technology offers accessible alternatives for avoiding the stigma of smell. Vaporizers, increasingly affordable, powerful and widely available, allow for discreet consumption without combustion, and they cut across class lines. “Plenty of poor people vape. Plenty of rich people puff tough on rowdy flower,” Downs says. Likewise, certain cultural phenomena, particularly those linked to hip-hop, have allowed figures from working-class backgrounds to flip the stigma, turning the smell of a joint into a status symbol and, why not, by extension, one of triumph.
In San Francisco, you can’t smoke in Salesforce Park. No one will say anything if you light up in a park in the Bayview.
David Downs
So, once again, as with almost every issue, the tension shifts toward architectural design and living conditions. How much you have, how much you’re worth. Money buys the ability to complain and be heard by the management of a luxury building in Manhattan, guaranteeing pristine air. To see the other side of the coin, residents of public housing who suffer from other people’s smoke lack effective institutional mechanisms for resolving the problem. For Downs, the key lies in coexistence and respect for non-consumers. Exposing non-consumers, “especially children,” to secondhand smoke without their permission is “unethical,” he says, and he warns that “cannabis will become illegal again if we piss off enough non-users over the smell and other nuisance behaviors.”
The smell of marijuana on the streets of American cities functions as an instant social X-ray. A 420 cartography that brings some into focus and blurs others. While those with greater economic power can retreat into odorless concentrates or impose strict rules within their bubbles, working-class communities once again carry the historical weight of suspicion. Smoking high-quality flower remains a kind of Russian roulette: you, yes; not you; not that one either. Nobody, yes. Everybody, yes. It always depends on who. And amid curls of smoke, the smell of cannabis reveals social class not because of the nature of the plant, but because of the size of the wallet held by whoever has the lighter.
