UNMISTAKABLE SMELL GRABS YOUR ATTENTION

So I'm walking in the Loop early Tuesday morning when the breeze carries a
strong scent to me and nearly stops me in its tracks because it's so . . .
unexpected.

I know that aroma. I can't figure out where it's coming from--but I know
that scent. When you smell this particular smell you immediately recognize
the smell for the smell that it is, even if you're not someone who
participates in the activity that creates the smell in the first place.

I'm talking about marijuana. Cannabis, dope, pot, Mary Jane, chala, reefer,
ganja, skunk, kif, herb, gage, grass, Aunt Mary, smiley, mull, Chronic,
diggity dank, King Bud, or as they say in some parts of Brazil: Malacachafa.
(At least that's what J. Peterman told me.)

Somebody was toking up on a weekday in the Loop.

I'm not going to pull a Billy Clinton and say I've never inhaled--but the
truth is that I've never been a regular pot smoker or even a casual user. My
"experimentation," as the politicians like to put it (as if they were
chemistry majors working in a lab and not college kids getting wasted on
spring break), was confined to some communal pot-smoking way back when. The
last time I even toked on a joint, Kajagoogoo was topping the charts, OK?

Based on those sketchy, long-ago experiences, my impression of smoking pot
was that it makes you feel sleepy, silly and hungry; it burns your throat
and pierces your lungs and elicits great fits of coughing; and it robs you
of all ambition and drive. But hey, at least you're giggling up a storm
while you're planted on the sofa, eating Nacho Cheese Doritos and Zingers
while trying to come up with the full names for all the characters on
"Gilligan's Island," right?

Yet even with my half-baked contact with pot, I can readily identify its
sweet-herb pungent aroma in a heartbeat. It's like the interior of a new car
or a freshly cut lawn or a Bears defensive lineman after a scrimmage in full
pads--nothing else smells quite like it.

I never did see anyone smoking a joint Tuesday morning, but I know that
somebody in the area was getting high outside. It's not as if I'd become
aware of someone shooting up smack or prancing about nude while singing "God
Bless America" at a major intersection, but there was something startling
and mildly subversive about it. If you smelled pot in the air in Denmark or
the Netherlands or Luxembourg, or even France or Italy, it would be no big
deal, but here it's still as surprising (and illegal) as a topless woman on
a beach or a guy selling shots of tequila on the sidewalk.

Nor was this an isolated incident. I won't claim there's some kind of
getting-high-in-plain-sight movement going on, but I can think of at least
three or four other occasions within the last year in which I saw or picked
up the scent of someone smoking pot.

A few months ago, I was walking on the Near North Side when I picked up the
strong scent of pot in the air. On that occasion I did see the culprit--a
guy walking just a few feet in front of me.

By all appearances he was a manual laborer of some kind. He had an oversized
lunchbox in one hand--and a joint cupped in the other. If you saw him from
across the street you might figure he was smoking a cigarette, but this was
no Kool Mild. And though this guy wasn't chanting "Irie!" and offering
strangers to take a hit, it wasn't as if he was really trying to hide what
he was doing, either.

Entering the outdoor patio of a Chicago restaurant recently, I picked up the
distinct scent of pot--as did the friend who was with me. Maybe it was
coming from a nearby backyard, or maybe someone had surreptitiously lit up
at a back table, forgetting that the aroma would dominate.

And of course, the scent of weed continues to hang over many a concert
venue, whether the onstage act is a 60-year-old dinosaur with a leather vest
and a snow-white ponytail or a 22-year-old rapper wearing an oversized
jersey. (If anything, the concentration of pot smokers seems greater at the
oldies shows, as aging Boomers have more cash and can buy a better grade of
weed. I was at a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young concert a few years ago and
there was so much dope in the air that the building got the munchies.)

I'm not shocked by these episodes any more than I'm shocked that you can see
movies on airplanes. (That's another columnist.) Although I don't agree with
pot and pot doesn't agree with me, I wish we'd take more of a Western
European attitude with our laws about marijuana use, and save the prison
space for more serious offenders.

I am, however, a bit taken aback that anyone would light up in public and
risk getting pinched. Let's not kid ourselves, there are tens of thousands
of otherwise law-abiding Chicagoans who get high on a regular basis--but 99
percent of them have the good sense to do it in the privacy of their own
dwellings.

As for the more brazen types who are firing up the joints or the one-
hitters in the great outdoors, maybe they're getting high a little bit too
often and they're forgetting where they're at. After all, this stuff can
mess with your head, especially if you smoke it too often.

Why do you think they call it Malacachafa?