CBD dabbing: kit, temperatures and the legal framework

The term comes from the verb to daub, and describes the gesture: placing a small amount of sticky material on a hot surface. The "Hash oil" article on the English Wikipedia defines dabbing as smoking or vaporising hash oil, through a water pipe that everyday vocabulary calls a dab rig.

One point of vocabulary settles the essentials: a dab is not a product category but a way of applying heat. What is heated is a concentrate, butane hash oil, shatter, wax or rosin, and not a dried flower or a pressed hash. Talking about a "CBD dab" therefore describes a gesture applied to a cannabidiol-rich concentrate, not a reference in the catalogue.

The second confusion concerns vaporisation. A flower vaporiser regulates a set point: the device holds a chosen temperature throughout the session. A dab works the other way round, by contact on a preheated surface whose temperature falls as soon as the material is placed on it. The two gestures share neither thermal scale nor mechanics. Our table of volatilisation points documents the second case, that of a set point being held.

The same article notes that the quartz banger has largely replaced the traditional nail, and that the cap creates a low-pressure zone above the surface, which lowers the temperature at which the material volatilises.

The decisive distinction separates flame from heating element. A torch gives no reading: the surface temperature depends on how long it is heated, how far the flame is held, the mass of the quartz and the wait before placement, four variables no instrument measures at the moment of the gesture. An e-nail replaces the flame with an element and a controller, and displays a set point. That set point remains a set point: it describes what the device regulates, not necessarily what the material undergoes at the point of contact. None of the sources opened for this article gives a numerical gap between the two, so we put none forward.

3.1 The volatilisation points of the molecules

These values come from our in-house tool, which takes up the points most widely quoted in the published literature. Two caveats go with them: depending on the measurement method, sources spread by roughly ± 10 °C, and volatilisation is gradual rather than binary, a compound beginning to come off below its boiling point. Above roughly 230 °C, combustion begins, along with the tars and carbon monoxide that vaporisation is precisely meant to avoid.

3.2 Temperatures measured on a dab

A study published in ACS Omega in 2017 by Jiries Meehan-Atrash, Wentai Luo and Robert M. Strongin, of Portland State University, reproduced dab conditions in the laboratory and quantified the degradation products formed according to surface temperature. The results for methacrolein:

Benzene appears only at the highest temperatures, at around 15 ± 1.8 ppb per dab. The authors also note the temperatures reported by users themselves: a band of 340 to 482 °C, with a stated preference around 710 °F, that is 378 °C, the majority favouring the higher values in order to volatilise the material completely.

Putting the two tables side by side is the main point of this section. The cannabinoids listed above volatilise between 157 and 220 °C; the surfaces used for a dab work, according to the users questioned in that study, at temperatures twice as high. This is neither a settings tip nor a recommendation: it is a documented gap, which anyone is free to read.

The concentrates the gesture applies to are those that melt without leaving residue: butane hash oil, shatter, wax, crumble, rosin. Our guide to wax and concentrates describes the first family, and the article on rosin, solvent-free extraction the second. On the mechanical separation side, the vocabulary has its own verdict: the full melt grade describes a hash that melts entirely under heat without leaving plant matter, typically obtained on the 73u to 90u fractions.

The state of the French market deserves a detour. The report funded by MILDECA (the French interministerial mission on drugs) and published in December 2023 had 248 cannabidiol products bought and then analysed. CBD contents there range from trace levels to 90 %, for a median of 3.86 %, and the highest values are found precisely on the concentrated forms, wax, crystals, crumble and oil. Two figures are worth keeping in mind for anyone buying a concentrate: 46 % of the samples carried no composition labelling at all, and 30 products out of 248 exceeded the THC threshold, with contents of 0.4 to 1.2 %. The authors point out that these non-compliant products turn up across every purchasing channel.

Phytogrammes sells neither concentrates meant for dabbing nor any kit: no rig, no nail, no banger, no e-nail. The catalogue stops at flowers and resins obtained by mechanical separation, iced water or dry sifting. This article is a definition page, not a sales page. Compliance questions are gathered in our frequently asked questions.

Two texts govern the finished product, whatever way it is heated.

The arrêté du 30 décembre 2021 (French ministerial order) reserves cultivation, importation and marketing to varieties of Cannabis sativa L. listed in the official catalogues, whose delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol content is no higher than 0.30 %. Its article 1, III applies the same ceiling to hemp extracts and to the products that incorporate them: a concentrate falls into that category.

The Conseil d'État (France's supreme administrative court), in its decision of 29 December 2022 no. 444887, annulled paragraph II of article 1 of that order, which prohibited the sale of raw flowers and leaves to consumers. The judges held that this general and absolute ban was disproportionate for varieties whose content stays below 0.30 %. The threshold itself has not moved.

Finally, these products are restricted to adults and are not foodstuffs. The law quoted here concerns the material, not the object that heats it: none of the sources opened here addresses the status of the kit itself.

• Phytogrammes, table of volatilisation points (consulted on 16 September 2026)
• Phytogrammes, glossary "Full melt"
• Phytogrammes, guide to wax and concentrates
• Meehan-Atrash, Luo, Strongin, "Toxicant Formation in Dabbing", ACS Omega, 2017
• English Wikipedia, "Hash oil" (dabbing section, equipment)
• MILDECA, "Cannabidiol : analyse de produits CBD non pharmaceutiques", December 2023
• Légifrance, arrêté du 30 décembre 2021 (article 1, I and III)
• Conseil d'État, decision of 29 December 2022, no. 444887