"The Shape of It All" or "Dr. Licorice Explains Why Bisphenol-A is Scary"

I recently made a chemical that smelled extremely familiar, but after numerous wafts, I couldn't quite tell what it reminded me of.

Me wafting the chemical I made.  The chemical is the tiny bit of brown oil in that small clear jar in my left hand.

This puzzle went unsolved for days until my labmate Michelle used some of the chemical and was like, "Lee, have you noticed how that chemical you made smells just like licorice?"

I was like, "OMG, you solved it!!!!"

Victory Licorice!!!

"Weed Science" or "Activation Explained!!"

This is the chemical structure of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive substituent of weed:

If I were to make THC in the lab, this is how I would do it (please don't be freaked out by all the chemical structures, they aren't completely necessary to understanding this story, but I find they help):

Looks pretty easy, right?  haha!!!

Plants however, make THC like this (ref):

Notice that there is an extra COOH group on the THC when the plant makes it. This difference is critical to understanding why people use weed the way they do.