Choosing a Dry Herb Vaporiser

If you have been prescribed medicinal cannabis flower in Australia, the device is not an accessory. It is the thing that decides how much of your prescription you actually receive, in what proportions, and how the medicine feels. Two patients on the identical product with different vaporisers can have genuinely different experiences, and neither of them is imagining it.

This article covers what to look for, what the differences between devices actually do, and where you can buy one. It is general information about the devices, not individual medical advice, and it is not a recommendation of any particular product. Your doctor and your pharmacist know your situation.

Key takeaways

• Vaporising is a condition of your treatment. Flower must not be smoked, and patients who smoke it risk having their treatment suspended.
• Four devices are entered on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) for this purpose: the Syqe Air Inhaler, the Storz and Bickel Mighty+ Medic and Volcano Medic 2, and the Grenco Medical Elite II.
• Precise temperature control is the single feature most worth paying for, because it sets how much THC you collect alongside the terpenes, and that is what changes the effect of the same flower.
• How a device heats, by contact or by moving hot air, changes how you pack it, how you draw on it and how evenly your material is used.
• A vaporiser can only be lawfully supplied for this purpose in Australia if it is on the ARTG, and the restriction extends to replacement parts and accessories.
• In Australia an approved vaporiser is supplied only through a pharmacy. If cost is a barrier, raise it at your appointment rather than sourcing a device elsewhere.

First, the part that is not a preference

Medicinal cannabis flower is prescribed on the condition that it is vaporised. You must not smoke it. This is not a style note or a gentle suggestion: patients who do not follow it risk having their treatment suspended.

The reason is straightforward. Burning plant material produces smoke, and smoke carries combustion by-products that have nothing to do with your medicine. Vaporising heats the flower just enough to release its cannabinoids and terpenes, without taking it to the point of combustion. You get the compounds you were prescribed and far less of everything else. Our guide to using a dry herb vaporiser covers the mechanics of taking a dose once you have a device.

The four approved devices

Vaporisers used to administer medicinal cannabis are regulated by the TGA as medical devices, not as general consumer products. Following the changes to Australia's vaping laws, a vaporiser can only be lawfully supplied for this purpose if it is included on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG). Four devices currently are:

• Syqe Air Inhaler - portable, ARTG 424790. A metered device that delivers a measured amount per inhalation.
• Storz and Bickel Mighty+ Medic - portable, ARTG 525733. Hybrid heating, fast heat-up, USB-C charging.
• Storz and Bickel Volcano Medic 2 - desktop, ARTG 319028. Normally used with a balloon you fill and then breathe from.
• Grenco Medical Elite II - portable, ARTG 526764.

These devices vary considerably in price, size, portability and how they are used. The Syqe Air is a metered-dose inhaler that delivers a fixed dose rather than letting you set a temperature. The Storz and Bickel and Grenco devices let you adjust the vaporising temperature, which matters for the terpene section below.

Two consequences follow from the ARTG rule, and they are the reason this article no longer lists cheaper alternatives. Your doctor is only able to recommend an approved device. And your doctor is not able to apply for TGA approval of a device that is not on the register, because approval for an unapproved device is only granted where there is a specific clinical reason that every approved device is unsuitable for a particular patient. Cost and availability are expressly not accepted as grounds.

That last point matters more for some patients than others. If your treatment is funded or reviewed by a third party, an approved device is usually the safer choice. Veterans in particular should read this carefully: under the DVA framework, dried flower must be vaporised using a TGA-approved medical device, and the DVA will consider reimbursement for an approved vaporiser bought through a pharmacy within three months of a dispensed RPBS prescription. Our summary of the DVA medicinal cannabis framework has the detail.

The Storz and Bickel range is among the best on the market and is priced accordingly. The Syqe Air is worth a separate mention for patients who are new to flower or nervous about dosing, because it is built around metered delivery and a more measured effect rather than leaving the dose to your own judgement of how long to inhale.

What actually separates a good vaporiser from a poor one

Marketing copy for these devices is largely interchangeable. The features that change your day-to-day experience are narrower than the spec sheets suggest.

Temperature control

This is the one to care about. A device with a fixed temperature, or three vague presets labelled low, medium and high, takes a decision away from you that is genuinely clinical in effect. A device with a digital readout and single-degree or five-degree steps lets you use the same flower differently at different times of day.

The next section explains why in detail, but the short version is that the compounds responsible for how your medicine feels are released at different rates, so the temperature sets the balance between them. It will not let you pick one out, but without temperature control you have no say in the balance at all.

How it heats

Some devices heat the chamber and let the hot surface pass heat into the flower touching it. Others heat the air and pull that air through the load. Most modern devices do a bit of both. This one design decision drives how firmly you pack, how fast you inhale, whether you need to stir partway through, and how much of your prescription is left unused at the end.

It is covered properly in our guide to convection and conduction vaporisers, and it is worth reading before you buy rather than after, because a device that suits one habit is irritating for another.

The air path

The air path is everything the vapour touches between your flower and your mouth. Glass, stainless steel and quality ceramic are what you want. An isolated air path means the vapour does not travel across the electronics or through glued joints on the way out. Cheap devices sometimes route vapour past plastic that was never intended to be warmed, and you can usually taste it.

Chamber size against the way you dose

A large chamber suits a patient who loads once in the evening and takes their whole dose at one sitting. It is the wrong shape for a patient who takes a small amount several times a day, because a part-filled chamber in most devices performs badly and the leftover material degrades between uses. Match the chamber to your prescribed pattern of use, not to the largest number on the box.

Battery, charging and whether it runs while charging

A portable device that dies partway through a dose and cannot be used on mains power is a problem if your dosing is time-sensitive. Removable batteries are a genuine advantage on a device you plan to keep for years, because the battery is almost always the first thing to fail. Desktop devices sidestep the issue entirely by running from the wall.

Cleaning, spare parts and support

Every one of these devices needs cleaning, and every one of them eventually needs a screen, a seal or a mouthpiece. This is where the ARTG rule bites hardest in practice: the restriction extends to replacement parts and accessories, and pharmacies are generally unable to supply parts for a device that is not approved. A device you cannot get a screen or a seal for becomes landfill the first time one tears. Ask the pharmacy directly which spares they stock before you buy.

Ease of use

If you have arthritis, tremor, low vision or fatigue, a device with fiddly controls, a tiny loading chamber or an unlabelled button sequence is a device you will end up not using. Simplicity is a clinical feature, not a compromise.

Why temperature control is the feature worth paying for

It is a common misconception that THC is the only active ingredient in cannabis. The plant contains hundreds of compounds, and the varying concentrations of those compounds are what make one product feel uplifting and another sedating. Cannabinoids and terpenes working together is what people mean by the entourage effect.

Terpenes are the aromatic compounds that give cannabis its smell: citrus, pine, earth, pepper, lavender. They are the same class of compounds that make a lemon smell like a lemon. In cannabis they work alongside THC and CBD to shape the overall effect.

Here is the part that makes your vaporiser matter. Each of these compounds is released at its own rate. When you smoke, combustion destroys most of them and adds by-products of its own. When you vaporise, you influence the proportions in which they reach you.

Boiling points, and why they are not settings

A boiling point is where a liquid turns to gas throughout, at normal air pressure. It is not where a compound starts leaving your flower, and it is not a number to dial in. Evaporation happens well below boiling point and that is what a vaporiser does. You are not trying to boil anything.

Caryophyllene makes the point. It boils at around 263°C, which is combustion territory, not vaporising. Yet at an ordinary 180°C setting it is released roughly 380 times faster than THC. It reaches you without ever going near its boiling point.

Read the list as an order, most easily released first:

• Pinene (boils around 155°C) - pine. Associated with alertness, memory retention and anti-inflammatory effects.
• Myrcene (around 168°C) - earthy, musky, common in indica-leaning products. Associated with sedation, pain relief and muscle relaxation.
• Limonene (around 176°C) - citrus. Associated with mood elevation, stress relief and reduced nausea.
• Terpinolene (around 185°C) - floral and herbal. Uplifting at low doses, sedating at higher ones.
• Linalool (around 198°C) - floral, lavender. Associated with sedation, relaxation, reduced anxiety and sleep quality.
• Beta-caryophyllene (around 263°C) - spicy, peppery. Associated with anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anxiolytic and neuroprotective effects.
• Humulene (around 276°C) - earthy, woody. Associated with anti-inflammatory effects and appetite suppression.

The last two figures are much higher than most charts show. Caryophyllene is usually printed as 119°C or 130°C and humulene as 198°C, but those were measured under vacuum, which lowers a boiling point a long way, and then reprinted without saying so. At the air pressure you vape in they are 263°C and 276°C. The effects listed are associations reported in research rather than settled clinical outcomes.

Using temperature deliberately

Take myrcene, one of the main terpenes associated with sleep. It is among the lighter compounds, so it is released readily even at a modest setting; there is no threshold to cross. What changes as you raise the temperature is how much of the slower-releasing material arrives alongside it, THC included. That is the real reason some products only feel properly sedating higher up the range: not that a switch flips at a particular terpene's boiling point, but that you are collecting more THC.

The same logic works in the other direction. A lower setting, roughly 160°C to 175°C, releases the lighter terpenes and tends to give a clearer, more flavour-forward, less intense effect that suits daytime use. The middle of the range, around 176°C to 190°C, is where most patients settle for symptom control. Higher settings, from about 190°C upwards, give warmer and sometimes harsher vapour and tend to feel heavier.

Two cautions before you chase exact numbers. The first is the one above: boiling points order the compounds, they are not targets. The second is that the temperature on the display is the temperature of the oven or the heating element, not of your flower. How close those two numbers are depends entirely on how your device heats. This is precisely why the same setting behaves differently on two devices, and it is the strongest practical argument for buying something with real temperature control and then learning what its numbers mean on your own product. Our article on terpenes and vaporiser temperature goes further into how to experiment safely.

More research is needed before anyone can speak confidently about the therapeutic role of individual terpenes. What is not in doubt is that changing the temperature changes the balance of what is released, and that is something you can observe for yourself within a week of owning the right device.

Convection, conduction and what it means for your purchase

Conduction devices heat by contact. The chamber wall gets hot and the flower touching it heats first. They start fast, cost less and are forgiving of a quick draw, but heating is uneven, the load keeps cooking between draws, and the material against the wall runs hotter than the number on the screen.

Convection devices heat by moving air. An element warms the incoming air and that air carries heat through the whole load as you inhale. Extraction is more even, flavour is usually better, and a chamber left sitting is not quietly consuming your prescription. They cost more, and your draw technique matters, because you are the pump.

For choosing a device, three consequences follow:

• If you want to work with terpene temperatures precisely, convection or a strong hybrid gets you closer to the temperature you selected.
• If you want something fast and simple for one dose a day, a conduction-leaning device is a reasonable choice as long as you pack firmly, stir and run cooler than you think you need to.
• Whatever the box says, the honest test is the evenness of the flower afterwards. Our convection and conduction guide explains how to read your spent material and what to change.

Matching the device to how you actually medicate

• Small amounts through the day. Favour fast heat-up, a small or adjustable chamber, and a device that stops heating between draws. A device built around one long dose wastes material on this pattern.
• One dose in the evening. A larger chamber and a device built for a single longer use suit you, and conduction is far less of a compromise.
• At home only. Consider a desktop unit. Mains power, better temperature stability and no battery to age.
• Out of the house regularly. Portability, discretion, battery life and a device that survives a bag matter more than the last few degrees of accuracy.
• New to flower, or worried about dose. A metered device such as the Syqe Air removes the guesswork about how much you have taken.
• Dexterity, vision or fatigue issues. Buy the simplest capable device you can find, and ask the pharmacy to show you loading and cleaning before you leave.

What they cost, and what to do if that is a problem

The approved devices sit at the premium end. That price buys evaluated performance, long service life, parts availability through a pharmacy and, for veterans, eligibility for reimbursement. Prices differ between pharmacies, so it is worth asking more than one before you commit.

We know that is a real barrier for some patients, and we would rather hear about it than have you buy a device we cannot support. If cost is standing between you and starting treatment, raise it at your next appointment rather than sourcing a device elsewhere. There may be alternative formulations, such as oils, that suit you and do not require a vaporiser at all.

What we cannot do is point you at a cheaper device. Only an ARTG-approved vaporiser can be lawfully supplied for this purpose, cost is expressly not accepted as grounds for approving an unapproved one, and pharmacies generally cannot supply parts for a device that is not on the register.

Where to buy a dry herb vaporiser

An approved vaporiser can only be supplied through a pharmacy. Speak to one of the pharmacies below before you buy: they can advise on current stock and pricing, which device suits how you intend to use your medication, warranty and servicing, and whether they hold replacement parts. Unless you are choosing the metered Syqe Air, buy a device with a temperature control gauge, because that is what lets you alter the effect of your medication.

The following pharmacies stock vaporisers and parts:

• Norwood Village Pharmacy - (08) 8431 1866, info@norwoodvillagepharmacy.com.au, website
• Cambridge Compounding - (03) 9969 7999, info@cambridgecompounding.com.au, website
• Edge Compounding (VIC) - (03) 9994 8028, info@edgecompounding.com.au, website
• The Green Box (Folium Dispensary) - support@thegreenbox.net.au, website
• Cannadash Dispensary - 1300 085 024, dispensary@cannadash.com.au, website
• Blaxland Day and Night - (02) 4739 1611, bmmc@blaxlandpharmacy.com.au, website
• Carina Day and Night (QLD) - (07) 3398 2501, carinadn@gmail.com. Parts available online.
• Dukasa Compounding - (03) 9822 3668, info@dukasacompounding.com, website
• GoGoMed Online - (03) 9088 8337, pharmacy@gogomed.com.au, website

Pharmacies are independent businesses, so stock, price and delivery times differ between them. Ring or email before you travel.

Before you buy, ask these

• Does it have adjustable temperature with a readout, and what are the steps between settings?
• Is it convection, conduction or hybrid?
• What is the air path made of, and is it isolated from the electronics?
• What is the chamber capacity, and does it work part-filled?
• Is the battery replaceable, and can the device be used while charging?
• Which spare parts do you stock, and what do they cost?
• What is the warranty, and who handles a repair?
• Can you show me how to load, set the temperature and clean it?

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to use an ARTG-approved vaporiser?

You must use a vaporiser and must not smoke your flower. Beyond that, a vaporiser can only be lawfully supplied for this purpose in Australia if it is on the ARTG, so the four approved devices are the only ones we are able to recommend and the only ones a pharmacy can supply you for this use. Some funding arrangements, including the DVA framework, require an approved device as well. We are also unable to apply for TGA approval of an unapproved device on cost or availability grounds.

Can I buy a vaporiser from a vape shop or a general online retailer?

No. An approved device can only be supplied through a pharmacy for this purpose. Pharmacies are also where the spare parts come from, and they are generally unable to supply parts for a device that is not on the ARTG, so a device bought elsewhere is one you may not be able to keep running.

Does a vaporiser come with my prescription?

No. The device is a separate purchase from the medicine, and it is bought once rather than each time you fill a script. Ask your pharmacy to quote the device and any spares alongside the medication so there are no surprises.

Is a more expensive vaporiser more effective?

Not automatically. Price mostly buys evenness, build quality, service life and support. Among the approved devices, the difference that most reliably changes the medicine is the temperature you choose and how you pack and draw, not the price tag. If the price of an approved device is the obstacle, that is a conversation to have at your appointment.

What temperature should I start at?

Many patients start around 180°C and adjust from there. Because the display shows the element temperature rather than the flower temperature, the right number is specific to your device and your product. Change one thing at a time and give each setting a few days before judging it. You are looking for the lowest setting that controls your symptoms.

How long should a vaporiser last?

A well-made device that is cleaned regularly and has parts available should last years. The usual failure points are the battery and the consumable seals and screens, which is why replaceable parts matter more than almost any feature on the spec sheet.

Is a vaporiser covered by the PBS or private health insurance?

Vaporisers are not subsidised through the PBS. Cover through private health funds is uncommon and varies, so check with your fund before assuming. Veterans should read the DVA reimbursement conditions, which are time-limited relative to a dispensed prescription.

The short version

Choose from the four ARTG-approved devices, because they are the only ones a pharmacy can supply you for this purpose and the only ones parts are reliably available for. Within that set, favour real temperature control unless you specifically want the metered Syqe Air, understand whether your device heats by contact or by air, and match the chamber to how you actually dose. If the cost is the problem, raise it at your appointment rather than buying elsewhere.

Then spend a fortnight experimenting with temperature on the product you already have. It is the cheapest upgrade available to you, and for most patients it changes more than the device did.

If you are unsure which device suits your prescription or your circumstances, raise it at your next appointment. This article is general information and does not replace advice from your doctor or pharmacist.