What Your Nose Knows About Cannabis

“The most mysterious, the most human thing, is smell….”

Coco Chanel, in Her Life, Her Scents

We have a nose for things

We look down our noses

We pay through our noses

We smell a rat

We follow our noses

We get our noses out of joint

We turn up our noses

The nose knows

That’s a lot of language around a sense we have mostly forgotten and yet the greatest secret might be, under our noses…

Because nothing is more memorable than smell. Smell is the most provocative of our senses and immediately evokes an emotional response in us, which is largely determined by our experience with a particular scent. Scents produce memories and memories produce emotions. Emotions produce an electrical charge that signals a chemical response of hormones in the brain, such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins. Too much or too little, our bodies produce an odor, a signal that all is not well. Even the scent of our breath can be a cue to underlying health issues.

One of the ways we create homeostasis in the body is by the master regulator, the Endocannabinoid system. Cannabis plants contain cannabinoids that perfectly fit the human endocannabinoid system. Like blood types, it’s a match. Our endocannabinoid system was only discovered as recently as 1988. At which time it sent out a mating call, its distinctive scent resonating out to a newly discovered human nasal organ.

Spinning ahead 3 years to 1991, an anatomical structure of the nose, called the vomeronasal organ, is proven to send messages to the brain through twin tubes located under the pits at the front of the nasal passage. Scientists think it is a separate sensor that detects chemical signals beyond the usual ordinary odors. This is considered by some to be our sixth sense, whose existence was hidden, under our noses.

Now a couple of decades into the 21st century, we are learning about terpenes,*(found in the essential oils of plants, responsible for the aroma, flavors, and the color of a plant.) and their marriage to our nasal pits. We are not only sniffing out a good deal when we hoover over the scent stations at the dispensary, but consider the possibility what you are sensing is an ancient language of scent, what an ancient culture of people, called mineyalange, their word for communication by smell, and it means, ‘to remember’.

If this nasal organ is indeed our sixth sense, and cannabis is heavily steeped in scent molecules, there is the possibility that understanding more about what appeals to our scent, to the more subtle scents of cannabis, might be our best guide into what our body requires for homeostasis.

Except in the olfactory category, cannabis is not a selfish plant. It hangs with quite the supportive entourage, and as the attention has been turned on it, it has in turn greenlighted other plants. Cannabis has in part contributed to a renewed interest in essential oils, botanicals, and herbalism as natural ways of healing our bodies. Universally we are turning our noses up at chemically made cosmetics, refined and processed foods, and pharmaceuticals. Replacing it is our interest in DIY projects using herbs and combined scents infused with cannabis in topicals, cooking, and beauty products, all which are aiding with decreasing the stigma of an ancient plant with so much knowledge to give. It's long made sure you noticed it, distinctively, through your olfactory bulbs. Why? Possibly because it knows what the nose knows, it's in the center of our face and we still miss it! It’s like that old story about the treasure being hidden where the people will never find it --- inside themselves.

There is a scene in Sideways, in which Paul Giamatti’s character, Miles Raymond, a wine sommelier, puts his nose into a glass and then says, “I’m getting strawberries, some citrus, passionfruit, just the faintest soupcon of asparagus, and, like, a nutty, Edam Cheese.”

Today, it’s the Cannabis Sommelier, who plunges his nose into a mason jar of flower, rubs it between his fingers, sniffs them, inhales deeply, and declares the detection of linalool and myrcene and hints of caryophyllene and the lightest hum of a blackberry note…and possibly just a smidge of tea..

This is not to suggest you need to be a sommelier of scent to choose a cannabis match for your needs. You can however trust your own nose, sure, to most people all cannabis might smell the same at first sniff, but the subtle differences, those floral, spicy, fruity, earthy notes, are sensed by a nasal organ whose only job is to send scent cues to the brain. The nose knows because it remembers better than any other sense.

Our nose, our sniffer outer, and good ‘ol stinky cannabis have cultivated a historical relationship. Their message being scent to the brain, ‘take the time to smell the flowers, there lives your inner genius.’

-CJ

© 2021