With more and more reforms to the current system regarding marijuana, and different regulations being changed for marijuana, people have started to question the use of medical cannabis. With a lot of local and state sects and governments still keeping the “zero tolerance” policy that comes with this, it’s something that some private groups have started to follow as well. While states and their laws have stopped employers from discriminating those who use medical cannabis, there is still that gray area for some people, especially if they do work in the government and the like. For those who want to avoid getting a positive test, here is what we know about how long it can stay within the body.
The Way It’s Detected
Marijuana is detected either through the saliva, blood, and the urine, but blood tests are very rarely utilized, since THC moves fast. Some people have found that the THC levels start to decrease within a minute, and then, ten minutes after they stop, they peak, and then they’re gone after a couple of hours.
But they’ve found as well that THC can linger in the body for up to 24 hours through inhalation. Plus, THC gets absorbed within the tissues of the body, releasing itself as time goes on, being metabolized within the liver, in the form of metabolites. These are found in feces, urine, saliva, and samples of your hair. They look for certain metabolites in these tests.
Usually, in urine, it can peak up to four days, or in as little as one day, and usually, in habitual users, it can reach high concentrations, and then, it lowers within five days. But they can be detected up to the next month.
So how long is It?
Getting past the science of this, there is still the question of how long before you can get a negative test with medical cannabis.
It might take about the duration of a screening of a urinalysis, and this of course, is dependent on a ton of different variables, but there are different timelines that are accepted. For occasional users, you’ll have a negative test within 3 days. For the moderate users using it up to four times each week, up to 7 days.
Chronic users that use it daily can take up to 15 days. For heavy users that use it every day, and in heavy amounts, this can be up to a month . This is based on research from papers, where the authors work to challenge that acceptance and assumption that the cannabinoids are within the body for up to a month or even longer.
But, based upon the research, it was found to be unlikely that chronic users would have positive tests for over 10 days since the last time they smoked. Then of course, for urine tests, it was found that it didn’t create positive tests if it was over 21 or more days after being able to use this
For occasional people, it was very unlikely for you to have that test be positive for up to 4 days after that. Then of course, for those who had a single event, don’t have to worry about it at all, especially after seven or so days.
With that said, it’s important to factor this in, and understand that the tests do vary, so there isn’t one specific point or another. If you do think you’ll be drug tested though, keep this in mind when you’re preparing for it, and take the measures as needed as well.
