How Long Does Marijuana Weed Stay in Your System?

After use, cannabinoids reach the hair follicles via small blood vessels and from sebum and sweat surrounding the hair shaft. Blood tests typically detect recent cannabis use or use that has occurred within the last 2–12 hours. However, it’s been detected 30 days later in heavy use cases. No matter how you use cannabis, it can cause immediate and long-term effects, such as changes in perception and increased heart rate. Over time, smoking cannabis may cause chronic cough and other health issues.

How Long Does THC Stay in Your Blood?

• Around 77 percent of heavy users and 39 percent of light users had positive tests.
• Quantitative testing measures the actual quantity of a substance.
• To grasp the ins and outs of cannabis detectability in your urine, it’s pivotal to unpack the journey of THC after consumption.
• Medical marijuana users and daily recreational users need a bit more time to completely detox—about 50 to even 70 days.
• Because THC is broken down pretty quickly into molecules called metabolites, it is detectable in the blood for the shortest amount of time.
• It’s also important to know that 15% of drug tests results from hair follicle tests can be inaccurate.

Plenty of employers require their workers to undergo tests to prove the absence of drugs in their system. Typically, this what is alcoholism comes in the form of blood, saliva, or urine tests. Other research found that THC stayed in the system of infrequent users for hours. Detectable amounts were seen up to 12 days after THC exposure in more frequent users. With edibles or tinctures, THC will enter the bloodstream through the walls of the stomach and intestines, traveling directly to the liver. The liver breaks down much of the THC to a cousin compound called 11-hydroxy-THC, which also enters the bloodstream.

How do drug tests for THC work?

The laws regarding cannabis have changed in recent years. What separates cannabis from hemp, from a legal standpoint, is that any plant from the cannabis family that has less than .3% THC is considered hemp and legal. Lee Johnson is the senior editor at CBD Oracle, and has been covering science, vaping and cannabis for over 10 years. He has a MS in Theoretical Physics from Uppsala University. At CBD Oracle, he focuses on research-driven deep dives into topics ranging from medical uses for CBD to industry…

• That being said, THC can peak in your bloodstream within the first few minutes of smoking weed and decline within an hour.
• However, little research has assessed how much someone must smoke to fail a drug test.
• Because of this, edibles can put you at a longer risk compared to vaping or smoking cannabis based on your use habits.
• For more information on these tests and THC’s effects, check out this resource.

How Long Does Weed Stay in Your Urine?

Some laboratories might also be using an older lab screening test with 50 ng/ml cut-off rate. Much of the THC in marijuana is processed by your liver, so boosting your metabolism can help your liver clear THC from your system faster. Exercising and having good hydration are two ways to boost metabolism.

Each half an inch of hair captures around 30 days’ of drug use (Gryczynski et. al., 2014), so a 1.5 inch sample of hair can cover 90 days of cannabis use. Because of this, it’s more likely to be used for checking abstinence for something like rehab or a scientific study. This study did have a limited number how long does weed last in your system of cannabis users (22, based on urine results), though, so it should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Weed stays in urine from 7-70 days

How long these metabolites remain in your system depends on a lot of factors. Naturally, this can make it hard to figure out how long cannabis stays in your system. It is impossible for anyone to accurately state the length of time it would take for somebody to test clean for marijuana in a drug test. This is because there are many different variables that impact on the rate that marijuana is both metabolized and excreted (see below).

Testing for THC and its metabolites can only determine whether cannabis has been used within a given window of time. THC and its metabolites may stay in your system anywhere from several days to several months after you last use cannabis. Several factors affect how long cannabis metabolites stay in your system. Eventually, THC and its metabolites are excreted in urine and stool. The more THC metabolites you have in your body, the longer this process takes. Chronic heavy use increases the length of time that it can be detected.

• This article has been reviewed by Dr. Anand Dugar, an anesthesiologist, pain medicine physician and the founder of Green Health Docs.
• Presence of this substance serves as confirmation someone has used a certain drug.
• Give us a call today to verify your insurance coverage or to learn more about paying for addiction treatment.
• This can get complicated because there are legal versions of THC like delta-8, delta-10 and Dronabinol a.k.a. Marinol.

As you can see, your body is naturally eager to absorb and process psychoactive THC and other active cannabinoids. (Drug tests, by the way, are only looking for THC.) So those chemical compounds of weed don’t stay in your system very long. Specifically, THC will stay in your saliva for one to two days after your last puff. If you’re worried that you smoke a lot, or if your weed is more potent, traces of THC could linger up to a week, max. Some people wonder if being exposed to secondhand marijuana smoke will result in a positive drug test. Certain research has shown that secondhand smoke exposure has resulted in positive tests.

How Long Does It Take for Marijuana to Get out of Your System?

Drinking sufficient amounts of water may https://ecosoberhouse.com/ also help to remove THC metabolites through urine and bowel movements. Getting plenty of sleep can also help to avoid any decreases in metabolism. One important factor is also the kind of urine THC tests that are being used. In the calculations above, it was presumed that the detection of THC in urine is being conducted with a standard drug screening test with a 20 ng/ml cut-off rate.