How to Avoid Coronavirus in Your Cannabis
3 Ways to Stay Safe When You’re Staying Social – LPC
The last thing anyone wants is coronavirus in your cannabis. As the number of cases rises, public health experts are asking people to take precautions including social distancing and, most importantly, regularly washing hands.
But what about your cannabis ritual? Consuming cannabis can be a social thing, too. Benzinga has come up with three ways to share while avoiding coronavirus in your cannabis. (Please see link to full article below.)
1. Smoking or Vaping Cannabis
Smoking cannabis remains the most popular way for people to consume cannabis. This includes vaping, which is gaining in popularity now that Cannabis 2.0 products are legal in Canada. Vaping sales in Ontario alone topped $3.75 million in January, and those numbers are expected to grow.
However, sharing can lead to coronavirus in your cannabis. The virus is carried through saliva, among other ways. Sharing a pre-roll, pipe, or a vaping device can transfer spit from one person to another. If they have the coronavirus (and you can have it without knowing it), then you now have the virus. Any heat generated in the combustion process won’t change anything. If it doesn’t burn your lips, it’s certainly not hot enough to destroy the virus.
That doesn’t mean you can’t be social. The only difference is, don’t pass around the same cannabis. Make sure everyone has their own to reduce the risk of transmitting the disease.
2. Sharing Edibles and Beverages
Edibles and beverages represent new ways of getting coronavirus in your cannabis. Just as with smoking and vaping, sharing edibles – candies from a jar or cake from a plate – and transfer the virus. It can be transferred through saliva directly to the edibles, or it can be transferred from hands that brush against one edible or the plate on the way to another edible.
Make sure everyone gets their own supply of edibles – and no dipping in communal bowls! If you are hosting, make sure you wash your hands before setting out on plates. Spread items out to reduce the chance of accidental contamination. Consider using toothpicks to reduce the risk further.
Beverages should never be shared. If you are splitting one, use separate glasses rather than drinking from the same bottle. However, given the cannabis beverage delays, this isn’t likely an issue right now.
3. Drops – Easier to Get Coronavirus in Your Cannabis Than You Think
Sharing a dropper can transmit coronoavirus, even if you don’t think it’s touching the other person. Saliva droplets can still hit the dropper and pass the virus along from one person to another. Even if nobody has put their mouth on it recently, the virus can survive on hard surfaces for up to 72 hours.
Droppers are definitely at lower risk of getting coronavirus in your cannabis. But it’s not zero risk. Using your own clean dropper is.
This editorial content from the LPC News Team provides analysis, insight, and perspective on current news articles. To read the source article this commentary is based upon, please click on the link below.
