If you love cannabis, chances are you can’t get enough of the smell of the stuff. There’s something uniquely intoxicating about the aroma profile of a good bit of bud, which should be embraced and celebrated. But at the same time, you have to allow for those who simply cannot stand its signature stink.

Particularly if you need to keep things as discreet as possible, odour prevention is worth taking seriously.

For some, it’s a case of keeping things under wraps when going about an ambitious cannabis cultivation project. For others, it’s more about removing all traces of their activities from the night before. In all instances, it can be astonishingly difficult to eliminate the smell of cannabis from even the most spacious rooms.

Truth is, if you’re going to transform your entire living room into a hot-box for an epic eight-hour session, then yes – it’s going to stink for a while. But if you’ve been hitting the bong on a slightly more modest level, you’ve a good chance of getting rid of most of the smell…should you feel the need to.

So whether you’ve family coming round, a landlord planning a surprise visit or neighbours you’d prefer not to piss off, here are five semi-effective ways to drive cannabis smell out of your home as quickly as possible:

1. Fragrant Products

Right off the bat, you could try your luck with a variety of scented products for the home. However, it’s worth remembering that most standard air fresheners are designed simply to mask smells, rather than get rid of them. Hence, you’ll want to focus on odour-neutralising products, which actually get to work at the source of the stink.

If filling your home with the synthetic fog of a can of air freshener doesn’t appeal to you, consider investing in a bunch of high-quality scented candles. Not the bargain-basement tealights they sell at your local store, but instead those that are laced with natural oils and actually smell like something real. Used strategically around the home, they really can work wonders.

Or if you want to keep things nice and cliché, you could always invest in a whole bunch of incense sticks. They’ll do a good job of covering up the fragrance, but will make the air around the space a little on the heavy and musky side in doing so.

2. Focus on Storage

If you can keep your cannabis and your arsenal of paraphernalia out of the way, you’ll stand a much better chance of getting rid of the stink. You’d be amazed just how much aroma is emitted by funky pipes and bongs, left to fester in a cupboard behind the couch. If you need to go nuclear, you could always store your stuff in a secure outhouse – just as long as it’s not too cold or hot outdoors.

With fresh cannabis flowers, there’s nothing you’ll need to contain their fragrance other than the required number of quality glass jars. Just as long as the seal is genuinely air-tight, there’s no of realistic way of the fragrance creeping out into the surrounding space. It’ll release a burst of gorgeous funk each time you open it, but should keep things perfectly discreet in the meantime.

3. Ventilate the Space

Ventilation is your best friend before, during and after a session you’d prefer to keep as discrete as possible. If you make the mistake of hitting things hard in a sealed space, the smell is going to find its way into and onto everything in the vicinity. Fabric fresheners can help, but nothing gets the job done better than fresh air.

Keep as many windows and doors open as possible before and during the event.  Afterwards, open even more doors and windows if possible, setting up a few oscillating fans to encourage good circulation in the space. 

If growing cannabis indoors, the importance of good airflow and circulation cannot be overstated. If you don’t plan on setting up an advanced extraction system, at least treat your plants to a couple of basic desk fans and a consistent supply of fresh air from the outdoors.

4. Try a Sploof

You can always try your hand at a little craft project, which might just add to the enjoyment of the whole thing. If you’ve never come across the idea of a ‘sploof’ before, it’s simply a very basic device used to filter some of the smoke you’d otherwise bellow into the surrounding space.

The good news being that all you need to make your own is a tumble dryer sheet, some toilet paper, a rubber band and an empty cardboard tube. Place the tumble dryer sheet over one end of the tube and secure it in place with a rubber band. Stuff plenty of toilet paper into the tube and push it right down until it reaches the dryer sheet at the other side.

It’s then simply a case of exhaling by every hit into the sploof, which will filter out plenty of odour particles and neutralise even more with the dryer sheet. It’s a crude filtration device, but can be surprisingly effective!

5. Switch to vaping or edibles

Last but not least…and at the risk of upsetting some purists…you could also consider switching to a different method of consumption. If you need to keep things under wraps for any given reason, vaping doesn’t produce nearly the same pungent pong as smoking.  Likewise, you could also give cannabis edibles a shot, which typically release little to no funky fragrance whatsoever.

It may detract from the ceremony of the whole thing, but this is augmented by the fact that you stand to get significantly higher from the same quantity of cannabis. Not to mention, save yourself one hell of a headache when the clean-up calls the next day.