I'm olifactorily challenged. I can't detect whether a person across the counter is a cigarette smoker or not. But can detect the smoke if it's blowing my way from 50 feet. Can't smell their alcohol either. But I'll grant that pot smoker's have a certain musk(?) I can pick up.
Jim

I actually have a friend who lives in a (nice) Sprinter down by the Willamette. He's loaded but likes to live simply.

How long ago?
In the 80's and 90's that was pretty much spot on.
There was a time when I had to change clothes in the garage and then take two showers before the wife would let me into the rest of the house, and I had to buy a new pillow once a month because there was no way to get that smell out of my hair. But things have changed.

Workers in california refineries today usually don't get "any on them" and they all have to wear nomex that they change out of before they leave.
Equipment is cleaned much better than it used to be prior to turning over to maintenance, and workers are given tyvek suits to go over their nomex and other types of PPE that keeps most of the nasty stuff off them.


There was also a time when you could find a refinery by following the smell, but they don't stink anymore. Can't. If they did they'd be shut down in a heatbeat.

we spend tens of millions per year just on preventing tiny fugitive emmissions, things like invisible leaks at pipe threads, leaks too small to see, etc.
Anything over 500 parts per million requires immediate remediation and we have over a million specific points that are carelully measured ad documented quarterly with very so-fist-icated equipment run by 250 contractors day in and day out.
It all adds up and makes them cleaner than the olden days.

There used to be a joke going around that went like this:

"My girl friend asked me to kiss her where it stinks, so I drove her to El Segundo."
But that Chevron refinery is so much cleaner now than it used to be, the biggest problem they have in that town now in the shriracha pepper sauce plant.

And people who eat asparagus....we should ban that $#!^.........
Really...its about taking a shower.

Sanford and Son. lol. good times

I can tell if the person in the car in front of me is smoking.

Don't really like the smell of pot smoke either, but if I had to pick I'd take it over cigarettes every time.

Now that I quit smoking , I am the same way. I can smell cigarette smokers from inside my building when they pull into my parking lot. Pot smoke does not bother me, I even inhaled once. maybe twice