Sunday, June 1, 2014

Delaware State Police Have Incredible Olfactory Abilities

Yes, incredible, as in impossible to believe.

Near midnight last Tuesday, Delaware state troopers pulled a car over for speeding. According to The News Journal, as the officers approached they noticed “an odor of marijuana was wafting from the car, combined with the scent of air fresheners.”

Hmmm. The smell of burning marijuana is easy to recognize, perhaps even when mixed with the aroma of multiple air fresheners. But the police aren’t claiming to have smelled burning marijuana.

On the other hand, unburned marijuana is difficult to detect and reliably identify, especially when it is wrapped up and hidden away inside a vehicle, and even more so when other odors are in the air. (This is a topic I cover in my book.)

In this case, a small bag of pot was stashed inside the center console, and other bags were located elsewhere in the car, location unspecified. In my opinion, it is highly unlikely the troopers could have detected an odor of unburned marijuana “wafting” from the car, much less amid the smell of multiple air fresheners.

It’s probably a moot point, as the troopers claim a “small amount” of pot fell from the passenger’s shirt as he exited the car. That would have been probable cause to search the vehicle, as may have been the driver’s suspended license and the passenger giving a fake name (I’m not an attorney so I’m speculating here).

All of which raises the question: why do police needlessly claim they can smell unburned marijuana, even when it makes them look like idiots?


Anonymous said...

It's funny to hear someone from the scientific community commenting on odors as if they didn't exist, when they should well know that olfactory sensitivity can vary by orders of magnitude from person to person. Furthermore, the differences between any two individual's pallets will vary from 15 - 30 percent. Are you suggesting that you are unaware that some genotypes (already associated with both psychopaths and scientists) have severely diminished olfactory sensitivity, as well as little or no empathy? Apparently, the two correlate so closely that it is appropriate as a diagnostic tool for psychopathy.

Here is a reality check from the non MAOA- L Gene variant club. Yes, we can smell cannabis wrapped up in Ziploc bags hidden in your pocket, anywhere on your person, or hidden in the car as well. Were it not for the crippling subjectivity of scientists, we would have realized the truth that we are two very different expressions of Homo sapiens, evolved for distinctly different purposes in a world that has not existed for perhaps 15,000 years. Only one of us has a problem with scent detection and unfortunately, it is the side that has the authority to eliminate our oldest and highest resolution sensory modalities from our consideration for a century at a time.

Of course, how would the majority feel if they realized that their shrinks, MDs, Congressmen, etc. were actually non-violent but lethal psychopaths? Foul you say, what kind of person does it take to cut off the skull cap of a primate and put electrodes into living brain tissue? What kind of person does it take to create bombs, which they are not completely certain will not consume the earth in nuclear fire? What kind of people could have been so subjective as to suggest that our first and most ancient sense was puny and vestigial, when all of the evidence suggested that it was only so for them?

Natalie said...

I so enjoy your frank and honest posts (ugh, Roja Dove, don't even get me started). In this case, though, may be there is another explanation. Do you think the individuals in the car might have been chronic (ha ha) pot smokers, and thus their clothes might have absorbed the smell? Trying to give the officers the benefit of the doubt ...

Avery Gilbert said...


I'm pleased you enjoy my ongoing game of whack-a-mole with Roja Dove!

You raise a fair point re: Cheech & Chong league pot smokers. They may be so saturated as to be identifiable by nose. To which the skeptical sensory scientist replies: does the telltale scent rise above the car fresheners, and is it truly detectable from a outside the car?

However the question is not whether or not to give police the benefit of the doubt. It is the police who must provide evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. And when they describe traffic stops like this in terms that strain credulity, they undercut their own case.