There has been a smell in the air these days, pretty much everywhere I go now: the grocery store, festivals…my backyard. It has the scent of someone who has wandered the forest for days without access to a shower or any modern hygienic amenities, having spent their time wrestling skunks and other manner of wildlife. When you smell it, you are all too aware of what it is, and has become a rather ubiquitous odor in modern society, of late. The grand smell of weed. Marijuana. Mary Jane? Pot! Reefer?! Okay, it has a lot of names in English, and can even go by their vernacular ‘sativa’ and ‘idica’, partially bastardizing the generally agreed-upon species delineation. The reasons for all of the various nicknames is likely as diverse as the names themselves. The real (albeit, general) name, however, is Cannabis (or Hemp, more on that in a second). There is even a debate on taxonomy and classification (is there one plant with different phenotypes or three separate species? The jury is still out).
Continue reading Let’s Hash Out the Ecology of Cannabis