When storing cannabis or cash, it’s critical to understand what kind of safe or storage process you will be using to protect your valuables. Recognizing the differences between gun safes and TL-rated safes can be what saves you and your facility thousands of dollars for anything that has been stolen or damaged during a break-in or robbery.
Humidity and Cannabis Storage
Organic matter thrives in temperatures between 77° and 86° F. Keeping your product stored below this temperature can help prevent mildew and other molds from growing. Extra heat can dry out the cannabinoids and terpenes take months to develop. When the plant material and essential oils get too dry from extra heat, it can result in a harsh and unpleasant smoke. Since warm air facilitates more moisture than cool air, it’s important to take all factors of your processes into consideration to protect your product.
Humidity control is key to keeping mildew and other mold impurities away from your cannabis. Store product between 59% and 63% relative humidity (RH) to maintain and enhance color, consistency, aroma and flavor. Mold occurs when medicine is exposed to humidity of 65% and above. If your product may already have mold, break the product under a light and look for webbing like moldy bread. If mold is present, the product should be discarded.
Safe Varieties : Gun vs TL Rated
Gun safes are notorious for higher humidity and warmer temperatures because they are lined with a type of wallboard containing moisture. Humidity can reach 65-70% or more inside of gun safes and temperature can increase from 8 to 10 degrees compared to outside temperatures.
The inner lining of a gun safe is mostly sheet rock, which is great for absorbing heat, but offers very little resistance to basic tool attacks and no resistance to the more sophisticated tools associated with burglaries in the high asset world. In current events, looting has been a large issue throughout the country. Many high-risk facilities who had gun safes in place lost product, cash, and other valuables, whereas TL-rated safes prevented successful access to valuables stored inside the safe.
Store your product in a TL-rated safe as they are not only cooler and dryer, they are also an appropriate means of securely storing any high-value product. The TL-30 designation is issued by the Underwriters Laboratory (UL) and offer the highest in security standards for most business applications. The TL-rating is the safe’s ability to withstand an attack from the common tools such as hammers, saws, drills and grinding wheels. Its solid composite body incorporates high-density concrete. The concrete inside the safe body is embodied with corundum aggregate and encased in a double layer of high-tensile steel. The numeral part in the TL-rating stands for the amount of time the safe can withstand an attack. Many of these safes are also rated to protect valuables from a fire for up to 2 hours.
When it comes to securing your business’s valuables, you want to have the best protection you can have in a proactive manner.
Tony Gallo is a licensed security consultant and Managing Partner for Sapphire Risk Advisory Group, named one of the Top 100 ancillary companies in the cannabis industry. Tony has more than 30 years of retail experience in the Loss Prevention, Audit, Safety, and Risk/Emergency Management fields. He is considered one of the leading authorities in cannabis security, armed robberies and burglary investigations. Tony is a published author on cannabis security designs and over the last seven years has spoken at numerous cannabis business conferences across the country.
