# What glue smells of weed? Also, why does my linctus have chloroform?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-glue-smells-of-weed-also-why-does-my-linctus-have-chloroform/625985
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 22, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-glue-smells-of-weed-also-why-does-my-linctus-have-chloroform/625985 "2012-06-22T20:31:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-glue-smells-of-weed-also-why-does-my-linctus-have-chloroform/625985/1 "2012-06-22T20:31:51Z")
I have never, until today, encountered anything that smells of cannabis that isn’t cannabis.
Today I bought some cough syrup which because it has a lot of info on its label is peelable so you can read the other side.
For reasons I don’t particularly understand after unpeeling the label I stuck it to my face. If I’m completely honest I do this sort of thing (especially chewing things that shouldn’t be chewed although that doesn’t apply here) a lot. Not in public mind you - but absent mindedly when no one is looking at me. Please do not read any insanity into that!
To my surprise it stinks of weed.
I happen to have another bottle of this cough syrup around and I have just tested it - there is the same smell.
What’s causing that? I assume the glue - in which case what glue stinks of weed?
Oh - and a bonus question - for some reason my cough syrup contains chloroform but not as an active ingerdient - I don’t know how much but assuming the ingredients are in order then there’s more chloroform than ethanol, and there’s “less than 100mg per 5ml” of that.
Why would you put chloroform in cough syrup?
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### Author:  [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-glue-smells-of-weed-also-why-does-my-linctus-have-chloroform/625985/2 "2012-06-22T20:57:31Z")
[Chloroform](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroform) used to be used as an anesthetic, although not as much nowadays due to concerns over its toxicity (including carcinogenicity, although probably not a concern in the amounts used in your cough syrup; 90% of chloroform in the environment is also natural, produced by seaweed among other things); it is banned in the U.S. from consumer products (thus I assume you live in the U.K. where it is still allowed, per Wikipedia):
> [@](#):
>
> Chloroform once appeared in toothpastes, cough syrups, ointments, and other pharmaceuticals, but it has been banned as a consumer product in the US since 1976.[25] Cough syrups containing chloroform can still be legally purchased in pharmacies and supermarkets in the UK.
As for the glue question, I have no idea but many tape adhesives do have strange smells.
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### Author:  [@ExcitedIdiot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExcitedIdiot)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-glue-smells-of-weed-also-why-does-my-linctus-have-chloroform/625985/3 "2012-06-23T15:49:28Z")
> [@Confused dart cum](#):
>
> What’s causing that? I assume the glue - in which case what glue stinks of weed?
The smell is likely a thiol-based curing agent. Thiols are organic sulfur containing compounds, some of which are responsible for a skunks pungent odor.
I couldn’t find much info looking quickly, but here is a patent for a recent[thiol containing adhesive](http://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/WO2010122768).