Open a dispensary menu for the first time and you’ll meet a whole vocabulary: live resin, distillate, pre-roll, RSO, badder. Every one of those words describes a format, a different way the same plant ends up packaged on the shelf.
Here’s what each category actually is.
Flower
The classic. Flower is the dried, cured bud of the cannabis plant, sold by weight, typically in grams, eighths (3.5g), quarters (7g), halves (14g), and ounces (28g). It’s consumed by smoking and requires a grinder, papers, or a pipe.
On the label, flower potency is expressed as a percentage of total THC. Beyond the numbers, flower varies widely in aroma, flavor, and appearance from strain to strain, which is a big part of why many longtime shoppers never leave this category.
Pre-rolls are flower’s grab-and-go cousin: ground flower rolled and ready, sold individually or in packs. Some are “infused,” meaning concentrate has been added, which raises the potency, and the label will say so.
Vapes
Vape products pair a cartridge of cannabis oil with a battery that heats it into vapor. They’re compact, low-odor compared to smoking, and require no accessories beyond the battery.
You’ll see a few oil types on cartridge labels:
- Distillate: highly refined oil, often with added terpenes for flavor.
- Live resin: oil extracted from fresh-frozen plants rather than dried ones, prized for preserving more of the plant’s original aroma and flavor.
- Rosin: extracted using only heat and pressure, no solvents, which is why it often carries a premium.
Potency is listed in milligrams of THC per cartridge, with cartridges commonly sized at half a gram or a full gram. Our in-house brand, Cannapy, focuses on this category, with extracts and vapes produced right here in Montana.
Concentrates
Concentrates are cannabis in its most potent format: extracted resins sold in small quantities (typically half-gram or gram containers) and consumed with specialized equipment like a dab rig or compatible vaporizer.
Names like shatter, badder, budder, wax, sugar, crumble, and live rosin mostly describe texture and appearance, which come from how the extract was processed. Glass-like and brittle? Shatter. Whipped and creamy? Badder. The label’s THC percentage matters more than the texture name when comparing potency.
Worth knowing for your purchase math: Montana counts 8 grams of concentrate as equivalent to the one-ounce usable marijuana limit.
Edibles
Edibles are food and beverage products infused with cannabis: gummies, chocolates, baked goods, drinks, and more. No equipment, no smoke, and precise dosing printed right on the package.
Potency is measured in milligrams of THC, listed both per serving and per package, with servings clearly marked or divided. Because milligrams are standardized, edibles are the easiest category to compare across brands: a 10mg gummy is a 10mg gummy, whichever company made it.
Tinctures and topicals
Two smaller categories round out most menus:
- Tinctures are liquid cannabis extracts in dropper bottles, with THC content marked in milligrams so measuring is precise.
- Topicals are infused lotions, balms, and creams applied to the skin.
Both are discreet, smoke-free formats with clearly labeled cannabinoid content.
So which format is “best”?
There’s no universal answer. It comes down to preference: how you’d like to consume, how much precision you want in measuring, what fits your budget, and whether things like odor or portability matter to you. Formats differ in how they’re used; what they share is that every product at ForeverGreen is state-tested, tracked, and labeled so you know exactly what you’re getting.
The fastest way to make sense of the menu is still a two-minute conversation at the counter. Stop into any of our Billings, Lockwood, or Bozeman locations and a budtender will happily translate.
ForeverGreen never makes medical or therapeutic claims about cannabis or cannabis products, and nothing in this article is medical advice or a statement about the effects of any product. ForeverGreen is a licensed Montana adult-use dispensary. Must be 21+ with valid ID to purchase. Please consume responsibly and in accordance with Montana law.
