10 Tips for Buying Cannabis Safely During COVID-19

Many states continue to permit sales of alcohol during the COVID-19 business. They call alcohol sales “an essential industry.” It may be true that alcohol helps people keep their minds off their quarantine, but if booze is essential, they should look at some other options.

Cannabis provides a diversion from the lockdown. Recreational cannabis offers a manageable escape from the news. Cannabis users of certain strains will also find relief from the stress and tensions associated with the pandemic threat. Some patients need the benefits because they are traumatized by the events, loss of work, deaths in the family, and more. However, there is no standard approach to sale of cannabis during the pandemic so far.

You can buy cannabis safely during the environment created by COVID-19. Nonetheless, there are tips and cautions you may want to follow.

10 tips for buying cannabis safely during COVID-19: 

1. Get off the street! It is high time you stop buying on the street. Your neighborhood dealer has few quality standards and fewer production guidelines. Black market cannabis has no oversight, quality control, or compliance sanctions.

Think about the “trust” you have developed in your dealer over the years. It is based on his being where he said he would be when he said he would. Moreover, the dealer supplies you with weed at the price you are willing to pay. These criteria have little to do with safety.

2. Read the label! The states that have legalized the grow, sale, and use of cannabis have done so with often elaborate mandates on information. They want evidence of disciplined farming, harvesting, producing, packaging, and selling. They require extensive data maintenance and delivery. This protects the states’ financial interests in taxation, but it also creates a sequence of touchpoints they may monitor for compliance.

The product on sale is, therefore, effectively labeled. Customers should read the labels carefully to review the contents, third-party testing, and recommended dosage. This required information also confirms the quality customers can expect.

3. Consider the options! Smoking cannabis is generally safer than smoking tobacco. The combustion produces fewer toxins and carcinogens. However, because COVID-19 targets the lungs with pernicious infection, you should not exacerbate the risk to your lungs by inhaling cannabis smoke.

Medical marijuana users have been customers who understand the options provided in edibles, oils, pills, and tinctures. Long term cannabis smokers are not so easily persuaded and seem reluctant to shift interests. The smokers continue because they have trouble giving up the oral fixation.

However, with some disciplined research and shopping, you can achieve the same results without smoking. You can find products high THC potency, strong CBD results, or nicely balanced choices.

4. Follow the rules! You now the rules: wear a mask, sanitize your hands, maintain social distancing, and more. In the face of the disease’s second wave, it is time to take these cautions seriously. If authorities have not shut down cannabis dispensaries in your area, you should comply with the published guidelines for your safety and that of others.

The dispensary compliance with the guidelines demonstrates their concern with safety, and that should put them on your list of go-to stores. Buying from compliant dispensaries endorses their efforts, and it promises you are quality product. So, check your dispensary online or by phone to determine how they are handling sales currently.

5. Change your dispensary! The dispensary you have used regularly may not be right for this time. If, for instance, your dispensary does not deliver, you should find one that does. You should opt for the outlet that offers contactless sales or reduced contact sales like phone orders and curbside pickup.

If you have been a regular at the dispensary for some time, you should know their habits. You should prefer a dispensary with noticeable cleanliness. The dispensary should forego the smell jars and physical handling by budtenders and customers, and it might test temperatures for arriving shoppers.

6. Buy online! To the extent that it is legal, you should buy online. Dispensaries and producers have websites with substantive information about contents, origins, and dosage. You are not likely to buy cannabis flower online, but you may be able to order wax, oils, or other byproducts for discrete delivery.

7. Stock up! There is plenty of cannabis available. The supply has increased as the pandemic has disrupted the economy and supply chains. So, you can stop worrying about whether there will be product when you want it.

However, you want to build a 30-day stash because you want to cut down your trips to the dispensary. You should have everything you need in terms of accessories, supplies, and cannabis for at least a month.

8. Pick your dispensary well! Your concerns should start with an assessment of the dispensary’s security. For example, you may wear a mask while waiting for admission, but if the other patrons do not, they are putting your healthy at risk. You can still maintain social distancing if others do not. If the other customers are the problem, you should complain or try another dispensary.

You should also understand the dispensaries have been under pressure, too. Their routines and personnel have been disrupted, so the people may be wearing a lot of different hats. You should have patience with the staff, but this is another reason to reduce visits to the store.

9. No time to share! Passing joints and blunts has never been a safe mode for using cannabis. It goes back to the days when cannabis was forbidden and expensive. Users would pass a spliff to optimize the use of their quantity. Because cannabis is smoked in singular puffs, the joint was passed while the first user enjoyed the high.

However, passing joints risks the spread of disease because the users leave saliva on the end. Each sequential user adds their own germs, multiplying the risk as the joint makes the rounds. It is also true that exhaling the smoke inhaled may spread infection.

10. Test your health! You should not be using or shopping while you have COVID-19. If you have a high fever along with other symptoms, you are putting others at risk. You should not be out and about except to see a doctor or seek testing.

The final tip!

Stay at home if you can. Self-quarantine when exposed to others with COVID-19. Check on your state’s current guidelines on cannabis sales. And, reconsider your cannabis needs in the context of what we know now about COVID-19.