As the smartphone of the cannabis world, the vaporizer pen was supposed to change everything.

And mass-market vape pens—cheap, disposable plastic tanks filled with distilled cannabis oil, hooked to a cheap, small and concealable lithium battery—did revolutionize the weed world, but perhaps too much so.

Vape pens changed the very essence of the cannabis experience. They changed the way you get high, because vape pens changed cannabis. From a purist’s standpoint, vape pens aren’t cannabis—and, from a purely scientific point of view, they’re not wrong.

They’re not cannabis flower; they’re something else. Does that matter? It might! Let’s investigate why the cannabis oil in vaporizer pens delivers different effects than dry herb, and why you might want to consider replacing that vape pen with a dry-herb vaporizer—especially if what you’re seeking is replicating the full flavor and effects of smoking cannabis, without the mess, lingering aroma or lung irritation.

was more intense. For others, vaporizer oil was less enjoyable. And they were right! Chemically speaking, cannabis oil and cannabis flower are different. And so it stands to reason they would have different pharmacological effects.

Does this make one or the other “good” or “bad”? Not necessarily. But depending on your preferred outcome, you might find one experience or the other lacking. Here’s a rundown of why that is.

supercritical carbon dioxide (that is, CO2 that is very cold and pressurized to become a liquid that separates cannabinoids and terpenes from plant matter); others say hydrocarbon extraction, commonly utilizing butane, propane or other such flammable liquified gases, is the way to go. Cheaper cannabis oil is derived from trim and “smalls,” aka small buds that would not sell in a bag—which is to say, lower-quality product than top-shelf bud.

Regardless of method, extractors do a pretty good job of preserving THC, so you can be assured that your vape pen will have lots of that (a fact quantified by the lab results printed on the label). The same can’t be said for everything else that’s in cannabis.

On the whole, extraction processes simply don’t do quite as good of a job preserving secondary cannabinoids and terpenes. There will be fewer unique plant compounds, and there will be fewer flavor notes.

In fact, there may be little or no terpenes—the compounds that give all plants their smell and taste—left after the extraction process. This is why some oil manufacturers add “botanical terpenes,” such as linalool from lavender or limonene from lemons. They want the extracted oil to taste like something.

Some extractors try to mimic the terpene count in cannabis; others don’t bother. There is nothing inherently “wrong” with adding terpenes back in—at least, not necessarily (chemically, limonene molecules from a lemon are the same as limonene molecules from Lemon Kush; it’s just no longer Lemon Kush or whatever strain the source material claims to have been).

That said, some states, including Oregon,have been mulling a ban on adding non-cannabis derived terpenes to cannabis oil. At any rate, while some manufacturers try very hard to present an extract that is as close as possible to cannabis flower, it won’t be identical.

entourage effect.” This is the theory, not yet fully quantified, that the power of cannabis is in the sum of its parts, and that the full range or “spectrum” of cannabis components is required for its full effects. These components—terpenes and so-called “rare” cannabinoids such as CBC, CBG, CBN and THC-V, among dozens of others—are what can be destroyed during the extraction process.

Some researchers dispute the entourage effect’s validity, while other findings in the science literaturesupport the idea that cannabis flower’s original mix of cannabinoids, terpenes and flavonoids is what delivers important medical benefits.

Whether cannabis flower is “better” than cannabis oil usually hinges on the belief that the entourage effect is present. This may be true, though the science has yet to demonstrate this definitively. For our purposes and yours, the determinant isn’t a value judgment but a case of personal preference.

Do you enjoy the smell and taste of cannabis flower? Do you appreciate its effects? Do you like the idea of contributing to plastic waste by buying disposable cartridges every few weeks (or even more frequently, depending on usage)? Based on these factors, you may want to reach for a dry-herb vaporizer rather than a cartridge-topped vape pen.

one advantage of dual-use vaporizers like the DaVinci IQ2 is versatility, with the ability to vaporize both flower and concentrates.

If extra flavor or some extra punch is what you seek, you can sprinkle a little bit of terpene-rich concentrate on the dry herb loaded into the device. Or switch between flower and concentrates, depending on your whim.

If you want to fine-tune the effect, you can use the temperature dial to release more of a certain cannabinoid.

In this way, you can find a mood- or activity-appropriate effect, customization that simply isn’t available with a vape pen filled withTHC distillate and added botanical terpenes.