Marijuana Packaging: How to Store Weed

The annoyance of having to store their marijuana in plastic sandwich baggies has long been a bane of existence for most serious smokers. We’ve certainly had problems finding high-quality, distinct cannabis packaging that still satisfies consumer taste and legal standards.

What can a concerned cannaseur do? That’s what Honest Marijuana, the Mary Jane experts, recommend.

In this post, we’ll discuss a few interesting historical reefer packaging facts and deconstruct the biochemical basis of tried-and-true traditional pro suggestions. That’s a lot of text for essentially telling you how to keep your marijuana as fresh as possible.

We’ll start with how companies used to package things in the past.

Marijuana Packaging History

Since the mid-nineteenth century, major pharmaceutical firms such as Park Davis & Co. and S.B. Penick & Co. (now Pfizer and Siegfried Ltd.) have focused on marijuana packaging because it is critical to maintaining medicine potency over time. To keep their cannabis from losing its strength, these businesses utilized airtight tin containers to preserve it from air and light.

Apothecaries (the predecessors of pharmacists) in the United States used ceramic jars to keep their marijuana fresh in the early 1900s. “But wait,” you say, “we’re not even in the 20th century anymore! We’re not even close to being in the 20th century now. Surely, those who rule cannabis have come up with superior packaging than tins and ceramic jars.”

You’d think so, wouldn’t you? That being said, we have. But before we get into our fantastic new canna-container marijuana packaging, let’s figure out what makes for a good cannacoanter.

The Chemistry of Keeping Weed Fresh

It’s critical to know how air temperature, humidity, and light impact your cannabis’s chemistry. You’ll be able to keep your reefer fresher for longer if you understand how to regulate those variables.

Air Temperature

It’s critical to keep your stash in a cool, yet not cold, location to maintain the psychoactive potency of your marijuana.

The term decarboxylation is used to describe the natural activation of raw, organic cannabinoids in their plant form (such as THC, CBD, CBN, and CBG), allowing your body’s endocannabinoid system to benefit.

There are just too many benefits to fresh decarboxylated marijuana to try and describe them all in a single run-on sentence.

The thing is, if you leave your cannabis in the sun, the THC will lose its euphoric impact and convert to CBN (which will still help you fall asleep but not make you high), which will happen over time.

The scents and medicinal qualities of the terpenes in your marijuana will also evaporate, making your medicine less pleasant to smoke.

Even if you keep your marijuana in an airtight container and store it at a cool or cold temperature, the moisture that builds up in temperatures of 77° Fahrenheit or above is more likely to cause mold and mildew.

Many readers will probably exclaim, “Freeze it! ” Many people think that freezing your reefer is the best method to preserve it. But you don’t want to freeze your reefer in order to preserve it, according to some sources.

Yes, super-chilled ice water, high-proof alcohol, and dry CO2 ice are all excellent methods for making cannabis trichome resin freeze up and fall off of freshly harvested sensimilla if you want to produce cannabis concentrates for vaporization, edibles, or tinctures.

However, if you store your cannabis in the freezer, the trichomes will shatter off and reduce the smoking benefits of the plant. Don’t do it.

Humidity

The humidity level in the location where you store your herb has a significant impact on how long its medicinal properties will endure.

Too much moisture in the air surrounding your marijuana will cause it to mold and mildew. If the humidity is too low, the trichome resin will be dried out and the cannabinoids and terpenes destroyed, even if the outdoor temperature is ideal.

A relative humidity (RH) level of 59% to 63% is optimal for keeping your cannabis highly potent, fragrant, delicious, chewy, and colorful.

The optimum storage level for marijuana, according to many experts, is 62% RH. However, people who prefer to vape their cannabis keep it at lower RH levels closer to 54%.

For serious marijuana users who want to keep their stash as fresh as possible for as long as possible, Boveda’s salt-based humidity monitoring and control packs are useful.

These will assist you in determining, optimizing, and stabilizing your sweet RH spot for keeping your favorite cannabis strains.

Light

Your buds may be bleached and the smooth of your marijuana can be ruined just as much by UV rays from the sun as they can burn your skin.

According to a study which left nine samples of weed out in different situations for over two years, light exposure was the most significant factor in long-term cannabinoid stability.

According to a study conducted in the 1970s by the University of London, their cannabis samples kept their potency for one to two years when stored in “well-filled, well-closed” containers kept in dark, room-temperature conditions.

Now that you understand how important temperature, humidity, and light are to the freshness of your marijuana, let’s look at some basic storage techniques.

Marijuana Storage 101

Believe it or not, the marijuana packaging has changed dramatically since the tin cans and ceramic pots of yore.

Most serious stoners today prefer airtight homesteading-style glass mason jars of various capacities. For each amount of bud, they’ll have a variety of sizes on hand. They’re the same type of jars that are used to store fruit and pickle veggies in. You may get a case for little money at your local hardware or grocery shop.

A mason jar with a lid is ideal for pot since it’s oxygen impermeable, isn’t affected by residual humidity, and isn’t affected by temperature changes. Furthermore, glass does not emanate any chemical compounds that would harm the fresh aroma of your cannabis terpenes.

Unfortunately, most clear mason jars won’t keep your marijuana fresh and flexible due to exposure to light or temperature. That’s why heavy-duty or tinted glass containers are your best option.

If you’re unable to locate a glass container with a lid, an airtight titanium container is your next best choice for keeping your herb fresh since it doesn’t emit any ganja-destroying gases.

It’s critical to maintain different strains of marijuana separate while storing them. This helps to keep the unique scents and psychoactive properties of each strain.

 

It’s crucial to keep any transparent glass jars you may have in use for your marijuana in a cool, dark, and dry location like a cupboard or wardrobe. Placing your ganja jar in a dark paper bag can also help shield it from damaging cosmic UV radiation.

It’s also critical to make sure your jars are the correct size for the quantity of ganja you’ll need to consume since extra empty jar space allows for more air, with all its undesirable heat, ambient humidity, and mold and mildew that may come with it.

You may also vacuum seal your ganja jars to keep the amount of oxygen you expose to your medicine as low as possible.

You’ll need to consider a variety of factors while choosing the right marijuana packaging. Keep reading to learn more about each factor and how it might affect your cannabis’s quality and safety.

What You Don’t Want to Do with Your Weed

Let’s talk about what not to do with whatever storage containers you pick now that you know a little bit about marijuana storage.

• Keep your pills in a safe place where no one can see them or reach into them.
• Keep your stash at a safe distance from electronics or other heat generating devices since the heat will harm your marijuana.
• Refrigerating your reefer is a bad idea because the temperature changes caused by opening and shutting your fridge door every time you get the munchies will make it moldy and mildewy.
• Keep your cannabis in a cool place away from light (i.e., not in the freezer). Because trichome resin heads are broken off from the rest of the reefer before you can consume it,
• Never, ever add fruit peels to your cannabis. Even if sources claim it’s fine, adding fruit peel will induce undesirable moisture, mold, and mildew to your marijuana.

Never store your marijuana in close proximity to anything with a strong fragrance, such as cosmetics, perfume, cologne, deodorant, shaving cream, aftershave, paint or polish. This is also why you should keep your stash apart from your lighters, pipes, bongs, grinders and other cannabis gear that will become unclean over time and contaminate the potency of the marijuana you wish to preserve.

Don’t Rely On Plastic

Plastics, especially sandwich baggies used by most marijuana users to keep their cannabis in, are the worst way to store it. Plastic bags offer little protection against light, air, heat, cold, or dampness getting into your cannabis.

The plastic baggie is one of the most common ways to seal your bong. However, it will also allow a lot of odors from your pot to escape. Plastic is an awful material for keeping cannabis fresh because it has a static charge that attracts precious trichomes from the plant matter into the bag, leaving a fine, sticky, powdery mess that you’ll never be able to get out of the bag and into your bong.

Bring your own empty glass jars for your budtender to fill rather than using plastic baggies when you go to a marijuana shop.