Gov. Jay Inslee just made Washington’s pot vape market a lot more luxurious. The state’s Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) announced last week that the governor’s temporary ban on flavored vaporizers will require pot companies to only use cannabis-derived flavoring in vape cartridges, essentially forcing the pot shops to ditch budget brands and sell only high-end vape cartridges.

Inslee’s 120-day ban comes as thousands of people across the country fall ill with a mysterious vape-related lung illness, but the governor hasn’t produced any evidence that his flavor ban will improve the safety of Washington’s legal weed vaporizers. In fact, his ban takes no emergency action against known harmful chemicals that can be found in legal vaporizers.

Instead of going after known harmful chemicals, Inslee is banning budget flavoring agents. Pot companies can still sell citrusy vaporizers, but instead of getting their flavor compounds (called terpenes) from natural products like lemons, the flavors will need to come directly from a citrusy strain of pot like Lemon Haze. Neither type of terpenes—the ones from lemons or the ones from a pot strain like Lemon Haze—have been found to cause the mysterious lung illness.

The legal weed industry called for a reversal of the terpene ban after last week’s LCB announcement. Lara Kaminsky, the executive director of The Cannabis Alliance, a statewide pot trade group, said botanically derived terpenes should be allowed in vape cartridges.

“We are advocating for science-based decision and policymaking,” Kaminsky said when reached by e-mail for comment. “There has been no evidence to show that only allowing cannabis-derived terpenes is safer.”

Tara Lee, a spokesperson for Inslee, said the governor is aware of the concerns and that the rules may change during the next legislative session which starts in January, when lawmakers are expected to act on making Inslee's temporary flavor ban permanent.

"We are aware of this issue and the governor’s staff has had conversations with the industry and with the Liquor and Cannabis Control Board about it," Lee said in an e-mail. "It is my understanding that the language could be clarified in the upcoming legislative session."

The governor’s action is likely to make legal vape cartridges more expensive which could inadvertently hurt public health by sending customers to the black market, the very source that appears to be responsible for a majority of illnesses.

The weed-vaping industry may have been spared the damage that the state’s E-cigarette is facing—Inslee has temporarily banned nearly all flavored e-cigarettes and nicotine vape retailers are already laying off workers and going out of business—but his war on flavor is hardly appearing any more sensible when it comes to weed.

With this latest interpretation from the LCB, Inslee’s war on flavor has gotten even sillier.

There’s no evidence that pot native terpenes are safer to inhale than their botanically-derived counterparts. In fact, on a molecular level, terpenes are identical regardless of their source.

The pot industry has been sourcing flavor from natural substances like lavender or citrus fruit for years because they provide a cheaper route to a flavorful product. Pot has plenty of good flavor on its own—pot’s natural flavors are often proudly advertised in strain names like Cherry Pez, Blueberry, Chocolate Thai, Tangie Banana, or Double Lemon Cheesecake—but good quality flavor is expensive to get from pot. You need to have both top-shelf weed and you need to run that weed through a more careful extraction; it’s a lot cheaper to just add flavor sourced elsewhere

But Washington’s weed processors will no longer be able to use those cheaper flavorings. Kaminsky said this didn’t make sense given terpenes are identical regardless of their sourcing.

“It is our understanding that a terpene is a terpene, whether derived from a plant-like lavender or from cannabis, and as long as the compound is naturally occurring in cannabis and there is proper labeling for consumer transparency, botanical compounds that contribute to cannabis flavor should be allowed,” Kaminsky said.

The Washington CannaBusiness Association (WACA) echoed the same sentiment in a letter sent to the State Board of Health (SBOH) earlier this month. WACA said in their letter that it also shouldn’t matter if the terpene is sourced from pot, sourced from another plant, or created in a lab—as long as it’s molecularly the same terpene, companies should be able to use the compound and label its source accordingly.

“Terpenes and terpenoids that are derived directly and solely from the cannabis plant will be no different molecularly than botanical terpenes derived from mint, citrus or other natural sources,” the letter said. “It is best to address the synthetic/natural issue via labeling.”

These naturally derived terpenes are not a controversial product and there’s no indication that they are getting people sick. The federal government’s two agencies studying the mysterious vape-related lung crisis, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have not implicated terpenes or other flavorings. Those agencies have yet to identify a single cause of the health outbreak.

Those federal agencies have found high levels of additives like vitamin E oil or other harmful chemicals in unregulated, black market vape pens. But Inslee is taking no emergency action on any compounds other than flavoring agents.

Even Inslee himself said, during a September press conference, that there was no evidence flavorings are getting people sick.

"We don’t have evidence at the moment that the flavoring chemistry itself is the reason for the disease,” Inslee said in September. “But it is the reason for the disease in the first place because it is hooking our kids on the product in the first place.”

In other words, Inslee isn’t going after flavorings because they’re making people sick, he’s going after flavorings because they’re thought to make these vaping products more appealing to teens. Outlaw bubblegum vaporizers and the kids won’t want to use them, Inslee thinks.

But even by Inslee’s own rationale, banning natural terpenes doesn’t make sense. The governor says his intent is to stop vapes from being more attractive to kids by making pot vapes taste like pot and e-cigarettes taste like cigarettes. Banning cheaper terpenes doesn’t accomplish this, because these cheaper terpenes are often used specifically to mimic the natural flavor of pot.

At first it looked like Inslee’s ban might allow non-pot-native terpenes. The emergency rules adopted by the SBOH on October 9 seemed like they could allow non-pot terpenes if those terpenes were the same terpenes that the plant produces. For example, you could still use budget flavors to create a known pot flavor like Lemon Haze, but you couldn't use non-native terpenes to create a non-pot flavor like Cotton Candy.

However, the LCB announced last week that wasn’t the case: only pot-derived terpenes are allowed. Even if naturally derived non-pot terpenes mimic the exact flavor of a pot strain (i.e., make the pot vape pen taste like pot) they cannot be used.

Brian Smith, a spokesperson for the LCB, said the agency’s interpretation comes directly from the SBOH’s emergency rules.

“The language on the website is not an interpretation, it comes directly from the rule. It has been vetted with our state partners,” Smith said in an e-mail.

So even a pot vape pen that tastes like a pot vape pen won’t be allowed if it’s flavor isn’t only from pot.

I personally vape all the time (I’ve been debating going 100% vape for a bit to cut back on my joint intake) but my vape cartridge shopping list will not be affected by Inslee’s war on outside flavors. I already exclusively buy vape cartridges filled with the more expensive, all-pot flavors, and I've been recommending these vape pens for years.

I don’t buy these cartridges because I feel a similar cartridge, filled with non-pot-derived terpenes, would be dangerous. I buy these types of cartridges because they taste better, they produce a better high, they are more interesting, and, most importantly, I can afford them.

But if there’s no evidence botanically derived terpenes are dangerous when used appropriately in legal vape cartridges, why ban them?

There could be serious unintended consequences to banning these budget pot vape cartridges. Inslee’s ban will very likely affect the average price for a legal pot vape cartridge. The top-shelf vape cartridges filled with only pot terpenes can currently cost over $60 a gram after you include tax. Budget brands, which use these botanically-derived terpenes, can currently be found below $30 a gram.

What happens when the cheapest cartridge on the legal market costs $60 but a black market dealer can offer a cartridge for $20? That black-market dealer won’t need to follow Inslee’s foolish terpene ban. Neither will they follow other safety regulations nor necessarily make sure they aren’t selling vape cartridges to kids. That sounds like a recipe for more people (including more teens) to be vaping more dangerous things.