You’ve socially-distanced yourself from friends and family (years ago, if we’re being honest), set up a work from home station, and for some reason, bought a lifetime supply of toilet paper. Most importantly, as the coronavirus outbreak lockdowns go into effect, you made sure to panic buy enough marijuana to open your own dispensary.
But how do you store all that weed so it’ll stay fresh and frosty until the virus is defeated and we all go back to attending festivals with people we hate? Here’s some tips:
• Top Airtight Containers For Weed Storage
• Canadian Company Is Working On A Weed Strain That Doesn’t Smell During Smoking Or Storage
• 10 Ways To Keep Your Weed Fresh And Sticky For A Long Time
Find a cool, dry place
Keeping your cannabis cool and dry will make it stay fresh for as long as possible. (Roxana Gonzalez/Shutterstock.com)
Two of the factors that can influence the freshness of your marijuana are heat and moisture. If your weed is kept somewhere warm and moist, it can start to go bad and even develop mold. You don’t want this.
A shelf in your bedroom closet is a good option – it’ll help keep the weed fresh and also every time you open the closet door you’ll get a nice whiff of weed which may also leave a slight aroma on the clothes you won’t be wearing in public for a while anyway.
The time-honored classic “drawer in the coffee table” is also good, as long as the temperature is right. If you have kids in the house on quarantine with you, it’s probably a better idea to put the weed somewhere out of reach. (So stash the entire coffee table with the weed on a shelf in your closet, as simple as that)
Turn out the lights
Exposure to light or sunlight – along with heat – can dry out your buds and cause them to lose some of their THC content.
Consider using a dark container instead of a clear one as well, just to cover your bases.
Use an airtight, glass container
Mason jars – they aren’t just for hipster craft cocktails and pickling. A sealed glass jar is a perfect spot for your stash, helping you keep out the moisture and stay fresh. Even better than a mason jar, you can find glass jars with plastic tops that are easily sealed.
Just make sure that the jar is completely dry before you put any weed in there. Alternatively, you can also use smell-proof bags that are specially made to keep your weed fresh. They come in three different sizes: small, medium, and large.
You aren’t in high school – no plastic baggies
Baggies are cool and all, but they don’t really protect your weed (Photo by GRAS GRÜN on Unsplash)
The classic dime or nickel bag always came in a cigarette pack wrapper, a torn-off chunk of cellophane, or a Ziploc bag. It was easy, convenient, and it did get the job done and was a great solution for weed you were going to smoke later that same day.
But what if you need your weed to last through a months-long quarantine?
Plastic baggies aren’t airtight, they’re exposed to light, and also, they produce static cling which can pull those cannabinoids and terpenes off the trichomes. You’ve probably seen this if you’ve left your herb in a baggie for a while – a little frosty haze of crystals on the inside of the bag.
Put your weed in a glass jar, put a sandwich in the baggie.
Not in the freezer
The freezer is great for preserving meat; it must be great for weed! But weed is not meat, and there is a pandemic outside – focus!
In the freezer, the moisture from inside the weed can move to the outside, much like with freezer burn. This can make your weed more likely to develop mold and also lose some of its flavor and aroma.
Refrigerate tinctures after opening
Tinctures and oils are great for easy, measured dosing even if the entire world is on fire outside. That said, they are perishable, and who knows how long this thing is gonna last (I’m taking the under on July 4th, but I’ve been wrong before). After opening your tincture bottle, make sure to keep it in the fridge, ideally somewhere that it won’t get too much light. And that brings us to our next point.
Edibles – keep hidden from kids
They look great but you definitely don’t want your kids getting into your edibles. (Roxana Gonzalez/Shutterstock.com)
It’s incredible how far edibles have come in recent years from the humble pot brownie of the past to gummy worms, chocolates, and all things in between. They’re also discreet and easy to take, making them ideal when you’re stuck in the house with your whole family on top of each other. The problem is, what makes them look tasty and delicious to adults works the same for kids.
Make sure to stash those gummies or cookies somewhere far out of the reach of your kids. While a kid knocked out on a massive edibles dose could buy you some quiet time to work from home, you don’t want CPS coming in hazmat suits to take your kids away during a pandemic.
Your supplies – it’s not just weed
Prepping doesn’t mean just making sure you have enough weed, you’ll want to also stock up on all the supplies you’ll need for smoking so you won’t have to venture out – papers, lighters, snacks, you get the idea. In a pinch, you can make your own bong or pipe, but for the rest of your tools, make sure you get that sorted out ahead of time.
Quantity over quality
The good thing about today’s weed is that just about all of it is going to be high quality, or at the very least, much much better than anything they were smoking during the Spanish Flu Pandemic.
Still, though, if money is an issue – and in the current situation, a lot of people are wondering where their next paycheck is coming from – then you might want to focus on buying in bulk to make sure you have enough to last. You can also consider a mix – buy an 1/8th or two of that real top-shelf stuff, and then a giant sack or two of weed that you can power hit till the world ends.
Most importantly – stay safe
Marijuana can be great for anxiety and can also just make all that endless Netflix that much more fun in the weeks to come. Most importantly, though, as hard as the lockdown is, if you have to keep social distancing. Nobody said you had to do it without weed, though.
Leave a Reply