Ask me the science - its freely available but try and divide it up not ask for everything in one go.
Bud needs to loose approx 75% of its moisture to be at a level where it is dry enough to smoke.
It will do this in high or low humidity since unless the air is saturated it will be able to loose moisture into the surrounding air and dry.
All this is the basis for most hang drying - think clothes, indoors hang a thin cotton shirt and observe it slowly dry and release moisture till it cant release no more and is dry.
Simple science although we can talk thermodynamics and energy exchange if you want to be anal.
So it takes approx up to a week to hang dry bud and also many other organic plant matter.
But it still taste of hay - the reason why is that bacteria and enzymes are still at work and take a few days longer to complete and stop. I dont want to be anal here - theres hundreds and optimize at different moisture levels and such but by two weeks hang drying we can be confident they are done.
We could also just simply make a joint and see if its dry and then done after enzymes and bac. have stopped - not a hard concept and many sample wine and such just like we do to see wtf exactly is happening in the microscopic world we cant easily see.
So ya the cure is just an extra step - bacteria and enzymes that work on dried buds moisture levels i.e. 10-15% take a long time to produce futher enzymatic change and bacterial breakdown hence why the cure needs a few months to produce change.
Curing is not needed, just hang drying long enough produces top shelf weed ready for sale or smoke - all who are good enough will tell you this and its well known to.many.
Are you suggesting you cant make dank ass smoke without curing? Stuff like this just singles you put as a greenie - weve debated and tested this many times and totally disproved it so dont be an arse and tell us different but rather work out why you cant do what we do and what your mistakes are