A quick search online will tell you how long cannabis stays in your system for. However, the problem is that it is mostly really misleading information.
You’ll be told that cannabis leaves your system in 72 hours mostly. So you’re going take a drug test four days after your last joint, and you fail. What went wrong?
I’m going to give you the truth here about cannabis and drug testing. How long it really stays in your body for, and what you can do to stop it being detected.
Here Are The Factors That Come Into Play
If you do smoke a joint, your first joint in like six months, or your first joint ever, then the chances are that the metabolites that are detected by standard panel drug testing, the main one being THC-NOOH, will not be detectable after about three days.
But these are the factors which will change that light user detection length:
- The amount of weed you smoke in terms of THC content
- The frequency you smoke weed
- How quickly your body metabolizes the cannabis
- How old you are
- How thin or fat you are
- Your diet and what you eat
- How much you exercise and sweat
- Whether you take other prescription or illegal drugs
All of the things above help to mount up that time that it takes. Basically, the THC metabolites accumulate in the body, and when more of those conditions above are met, the longer it takes for them to work out the body.
But that’s not the whole story either. Because cannabis metabolites bind to fat (as one of the few drug metabolites that does), it can be retained in the body for far longer. You could not smoke a joint for a couple of weeks, and if you are a regular smoker with plenty metabolites in your body, then they could still be coming out weeks later because they have attached to fat cells.
In fact, scarily, studies have actually shown that chronic daily weed smokers can still be kicking metabolites out of the body nearly 3 months after their last joint.
How Long Cannabis Is Detectable In Urine For
So let’s take a look specifically at how long THC stays in urine, and what you can do about it.
Urine testing is the most common type of drug test, so you are more likely to face this cheap and easy method of drug testing then any other type. The good news is it is rarely supervised testing, which means you have far more options for passing.
But generally, someone who’s used cannabis very infrequently will usually be clean in three days. That goes up to a week or more for a frequent user (a joint every other day or so), and for heavy user, as I’ve said, as long as 2-3 months.
So, if you are a pretty regular smoker of cannabis, and you meet a couple of the other conditions I’ve talked about above, then you are going to take at least a couple of weeks to get clean.
You’ll have three options for passing:
- Naturally detox (maybe sped up with detox pills)
- Mask the toxins for a few hours with a high-quality detox drink
- Submit a completely fake sample of synthetic urine
THC Metabolites In Saliva Drug Testing
It’s a similar story with the amount of time that THC metabolites stay in your saliva for.
However, the whole span of time is shorter than in urine. For a first-time smoker, it’s as low as 24 hours, up to about 48 hours for someone who smoked a couple of joints in the past week, and 72 hours or slightly longer for a chronic smoker.
So you’re not really having to worry about it that much if you haven’t smoked a joint for around five days, even as a chronic smoker.
These are your options if you want to pass a drug test and you know that you have had a joint in the past couple of days it could be picked up in your saliva:
- Brush your teeth lots of times and use a good mouthwash
- Use Oral Clear saliva neutralizing gum
- Use one of a couple of recommended saliva neutralizing mouthwash products
- Drink plenty of water and keep your saliva moving
How Long THC Metabolites Are Detectable In Hair
In hair, THC metabolites are there for a very fixed amount of time, which is basically 90 days.
But that’s nothing to do with how long they stay in hair, because all drug metabolites stay in the hair for as long as it’s on your head. As the hair grows out of your scalp, it gets trapped there until it’s cut off. Before you get clever and shave your head, that’s the same with hair on your body, it just grows more slowly.
But legally, the drug testing lab can only drug test a length of hair equal to your most recent 90 days use, which is usually about 1 ½ inches of hair from your head.
So if you have taken any drugs in the past 90 days, then they are pretty much certain to be picked up on a hair follicle drug test.
The good news is that drug tests for hair are quite expensive and rare. You are unlikely to be tested just because you might have cannabis in your system. But they are used for things like law enforcement, insurance, probation, and very rarely for employment.
When it comes to getting rid of drug toxins from your hair, the only method out there that works is called the Macujo method. It’s invasive, and takes about a week, but it sure as hell works.
What About THC Metabolites In Blood?
So I really hope that this quick guide on knowing how long we metabolites stay in your system, so that you can pass a drug test with more certainty, has helped you.
But I just want to finish by talking about THC metabolites in blood.
The bottom line is that blood drug testing is very rare. That’s because it needs to be properly done by a qualified professional.
On top of that, it’s expensive to do, and not very proficient because drug metabolites are not actually detectable in blood for long, because they migrate to other parts of the system for expulsion very quickly.
In rare instances drug metabolites show up for longer than 24 hours in blood, but 48 hours is extremely uncommon.
So you really shouldn’t ever have much to worry about from a blood drug test if you haven’t taken drugs in the previous 48 hours.
