How Long Does Marijuana Stay in Your System?

THC is what makes you feel high after using cannabis, and this can stay in your body for several days or weeks. The amount of time that it will stay in your body or shows up on drug testing will depend on many factors, such as how sensitive the drug test is. 

About Drug Testing

Alcohol might disappear from your system in just a couple of hours. On the other hand, cannabis can stay there for much longer. Drug testing looks for THC in your blood, hair, and urine and can find it several days later. But saliva drug testing might only find it up to a few hours later. That is because of how your body metabolizes the cannabinoid. 

This is soluble in lipids, which means it can bind to your body’s fats. That can increase the amount of time that it will take for you to eliminate THC. 

Detection Window for Marijuana 

Cannabis can stay in your body for three to 30 days or longer. There is a wide range of averages, depending on how often you use cannabis and how much you use each time. For example, if this is your first time using cannabis, a test might detect it for three days. 

If you use marijuana three to four times each week, it might be detected five to seven days. If you use it at least once a day, then the test could find it in your system for 30 days or even more. 

It will also depend on the type of test that you take. For instance, if you take a urine test, it can find cannabis for three to 30 days, while a saliva test can only detect it for 24 to 72 hours. The most sensitive test is a hair test, which can find THC for as long as 90 days after using it. Often, these tests look for the oil from your skin that transfers to your hair, which means they could show a false positive. Even if you only contact THC, then you could test positive on one of these tests.

Smoking and Failing a Test

A drug test will only find a small percent of the THC, so if you only have a bit of THC in your system, it might not be detected. The amount of THC that you have in your joint can vary. But there is not much research looking at how much someone has to smoke to fail a drug test. 

But it is generally accepted that those who use cannabis a lot might be more likely to fail a test that someone who only uses it infrequently. 

What Influences Detection?

There are many factors that can influence whether cannabis will be detected. For example, some tests are more sensitive than others. A sensitive test can find smaller amounts of cannabis. The tests can include urine, blood, saliva, and hair. 

The amount of THC is what matters, not marijuana itself. So, someone who used a strain higher in THC is more likely to fail a drug test than someone who used one high in CBD. However, it is hard to determine the exact strength of your cannabis. How high you feel will not determine this since there are other factors besides the dose that can weaken or intensify your feeling. Plus, THC can build up in your body. So, the longer you have used THC, the more of it there will be in your body. 

Cannabis can be stored more in body fat, so those who have higher concentrations of body fat might metabolize it slower than those who have less fat. One method of judging body fat is through someone’s body mass index. But muscle mass can cause someone’s weight and BMI to increase, so this is not always an accurate measurement. 

Many times, females have more body fat than men do. This means that a woman might not get cannabis out of her system as fast as a man might.

Exercise

Exercise will not change the speed that your body can metabolize THC significantly. However, if you exercise before taking your drug test, it might change your results. Some researchers have looked at cannabis users exercising for about half an hour before taking a drug test. These studies have concluded that exercising right before taking a drug test might increase the chances of having a positive result.

The reason for this is because exercise can cause your body’s fat cells to release more of the THC. Those who have higher body mass indexes are more likely to have increases in the levels of THC in their systems after exercising.

Your Metabolism and Cannabis 

Your body has to eliminate THC from your system as well as each of the metabolic chemicals that can link to THC. If you have a faster metabolism, then you might eliminate THC faster. 

Getting Cannabis Out of Your Body

If you are dehydrated, you might be more likely to have a positive result. To get marijuana out of your body faster, you can either speed up your metabolism or reduce the amount of THC in your body. By staying hydrated, you can prevent drug tests from showing a lot of THC. If you are right on the line between negative and positive, staying hydrated can make a real difference. 

There is no reliable method of speeding up your metabolism. Some people believe that exercise might help, but if you exercise too much near your test, then you might get a positive. The most important way to reduce your chances of getting a positive is to leave enough time between smoking cannabis and your test.

Closing Thoughts 

There is no perfect method of determining how long it will take for your body to metabolize cannabis and get it out of your system. You can use a home test to test yourself for cannabis, although these tests are not always accurate. It could take 10 days or less in some cases for it to leave your body. But many people will find that most of the marijuana will have left their systems in about 30 days.