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The District Cannabis grow facility in Hagerstown, Md.

Pien Huang/NPR

Pien Huang/NPR

The skunky smell of cannabis may be going out of style.

NPR’s science correspondent Pien Huang visited the grow facility for District Cannabis, which sells weed in Washington D.C. and Maryland.

On her tour, she learned why cannabis smells the way it does. Plus, how many strains have been bred — to smells like lavender, citrus and even cookies.

Read more of science correspondent Pien Huang’s reporting on this topichere, or check out the entire special series, “How safe is your weed?”

Questions about the science behind the mysteries, events and… smells… all around us? Email us at shortwave@npr.org – we’d love to hear your ideas!

Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.

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This episode was produced by Rachel Carlson. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones and Pien Huang checked the facts and the audio engineer was Kwesi Lee.