Where do you store your weed you buy online? When your mail order marijuana arrives in your mailbox, do you then tuck it into a drawer beside your bed? Maybe you tuck it into a cigar box under the couch. Worse yet, perhaps you put it in the refrigerator or freezer for long term storage.
Stop whatever you are doing. Put down the bud. These methods may have been how we all stored our fresh flower years ago, but cannabis science has come a long way since college. Keeping your cannabis safe is not just about keeping it secret. It is about maintaining the quality, potency, and freshness of that delicious bud you’ve spent your hard-earned money on. Your Cali Death Bubba should taste just like Cali Death Bubba, even three months later.
If you are still keeping your fresh bud in a Ziploc bag, cigar box, or back pocket, it’s time to step up. We live in a world where weed is legal (in Canada anyway), which means proper weed storage is an essential life skill.
The Risks of Improper Weed Storage
At the risk of sounding overdramatic, keeping cannabis fresh and potent is not just essential for the product itself but for your health. If you pull out an old crusty nug from under the couch, there very well could be some serious issues with it. The taste, odour, THC-content, and more will have taken a hit sitting under that sofa. But it also may have mold, mildew, fungi, or yeast growing in it. These are all dangerous to your respiratory tract.
As per Poison Control, mold can grow anywhere, and it especially loves damp environments. As they state, “Actively-growing mold damages the material it lives on, thereby impairing structural integrity. In addition, mold is associated with some untoward health effects in humans, including allergies and infections.”
If mold infects your stash, it is a sure-fire way to welcome infection into your lungs. Once you pack a bowl with moldy weed, you can expect those mold spores to travel through your lungs and body. They can infect your body, just like they infect flower.
Mold disease is a chronic and potentially deadly illness. It triggers a chronic inflammatory response that can have some pretty severe consequences.
The Mayo Clinic tells us, “In some people, the spores trigger an allergic reaction. Other people develop mild to serious lung infections. The most serious form of aspergillosis — invasive aspergillosis — occurs when the infection spreads to blood vessels and beyond.” What are the treatments? According to the Mayo Clinic, “Depending on the type of aspergillosis, treatment may involve observation, antifungal medications or, in rare cases, surgery.”
These risks are why it’s crucial to improve your bud storage from plastic baggies and cigar boxes. Store your weed right, and reduce risks to your lungs and your health.
10 Ways to Properly Store Mail-Order Marijuana
So what’s the best way to keep your stash potent, fresh, and tasty? How do you keep Pink Kush just as juicy as when you bought it? First and foremost, get rid of all the plastic bags. Even if your cannabis delivery came in a vacuum-sealed bag, you want to store it properly once it arrives.
Replace your storage container, adjust temperatures, and keep a careful eye on humidity levels with these 10 tips.
- Glass Containers: One of the easiest and most affordable cannabis storage options is a simple mason jar. These are non-permeable and airtight (meaning they don’t let in oxygen or moisture inside).
- Metal Tins: Another excellent option for your fresh online bud delivery is a metal tin. While often more expensive than a mason jar, they are just as airtight, plus offer better protection from UV rays. As only one example among many, the CVault is a sealable metal tin with humidity control incorporated into the design. But, so long as the metal lid effectively seals, any old metal tin will work.
- Cannabis Humidors: If you’ve got the passion for premium flower, you’ll want to invest in a storage case explicitly for flower. Cannabis humidors, inspired by cigar humidors, are climate controlled, secure, and always beautifully designed. If you are a cannabis connoisseur, a cannabis humidor is a premium receptacle to preserve quality.
- Ditch All Plastics: Moral of the story is you want to ditch all plastic containers for good. Plastic is porous, meaning that it will leech oxygen into the container over time. The problems with oxygen degradation are especially apparent with Ziplock bags or small weed baggies. Some plastics may also contain toxic chemicals that can lead to adverse health risks. Over time, the plastic can, and will, break down damaging the flavor and increasing the risk of mold and mildew.
- Cool Temperatures: Cannabinoids like THC and CBD break down when exposed to heat. You want to keep your weed out of direct sunlight and away from exposure to heat sources. For example, don’t keep your cannabis in a cabinet above your stovetop. Although the degradation process is slow, over time, heat will decrease the potency.
- Dark Places (Always): Did you know that sunlight also destroys the valuable compounds in cannabis? Just like heat can transform THC and CBD into less intoxicating cannabinoids, so too can UV light. The best storage containers are opaque, like a metal tin or dark glass jar. Keep your weed in the back of a cupboard, and away from sunlight.
- Avoid Freezers and Refrigerators: For many years it was normal to put any excess cannabis in the freezer for long term storage. Logically, it seemed to make sense. We put our food in the freezer to preserve the freshness, why can’t we put our bud in there two. But if you’ve ever looked at a freezer burnt bag of pees, you’ll know that over time the freezer changes the moisture content of the original product. The climate in the freezer forces the moisture content out of the perfectly cured bud. Once thawed, this can mean disastrous effects for the flavor and smokability. It will also create an ideal environment for mold, mildew, and other pathogens.
- Initial Inspection: Always perform an initial inspection on all mail order marijuana you buy in Canada. The weed you pull out of storage is ultimately only as good as the weed you put in. Use your five senses to assess the quality of the bud in your order. Does it smell or look moldy? Is it too damp or too brittle? If you suspect the flower may be compromised or is too wet, toss it!
- Take Control of Humidity: Stoners used to suggest some pretty strange methods for adjusting the humidity levels of a bag of weed. Even today, someone might tell you to tuck a crust of bread or an orange peel into your fresh bought bud. These outdated ideas are just asking for a bag of a moldy flower. Instead, buy a pack of cannabis-specific Boveda 2-Way Humidity Control packs. These are non-toxic and dialed into the ideal moisture level for cannabis. If your stash is too damp or too dry, these automatically adjust to reach a relative humidity of 58 or 62 percent.
Keep Your Stash Safe, and Tasty
Ultimately cannabis storage is not just about secrecy anymore. The main goal for cannabis connoisseurs is maintaining that fresh and tasty flower, for days and weeks to come. But if you are just getting into the big wide world of top-shelf flower, do yourself a favor and pay attention to where you store it. So remember, keep it in an airtight, glass, or metal container and a cool dark place.