How long does marijuana (THC) stay in your system?
You are a regular doper and love to live life on the wild side. Well, and there is a periodic medical checkup in your organization which you will undergo soon. This is the time probably you will seriously think of the fact that “ How long does marijuana stay in your system?
Also referred as THC (Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol) and found in cannabis, its stay in the body depends on a number of factors like the regularity at which smoking is done, the body weight, diet in general, physical activity in terms of exercises and body metabolism rate. Your body’s metabolism rate will be alleviated if you heavily reside on junk food with fewer amounts of fluids and are primarily inactive. This will leave marijuana for longer periods of time in your body.
The time span of its existence in body varies from typical 3-30 days. If you are a regular smoker it lasts up to 45 days and if an occasional indulger then it takes anything up to 10 days. If you are a consistent user then its lasting time in the body is about 90 days. Upon taken orally it can spread in bloodstream within 30 minutes to 2 hours and being fat soluble gets stored in the fat cells of the liver, kidneys and brain. Apart from this the half life of THC is also important in decoding its stay in the body, though it is really difficult to determine the half life and its stay as well.
Marijuana will be retained in the body in your hair, saliva and blood stream. Well its presence can be detected either by a urine or hair test. Your concerns about how long does weed stay in your body will be important for the kind of testing you will be subjected to. Is it urine, blood or hair test? The urine test is the most commonly performed examination for detection of the drug followed by the more accurate blood test and then comes the most precise hair follicle check.
The hair test can detect THC in your system even after 3 years from the time you last smoked it. This is due the fact that hair is not a living organ and does not have the ability to cleanse itself not even with cleaners. So how long does marijuana stay in your hair? Generally hair up to 3-5 cm from the scalp is taken for testing and on average it gives reading of a dose taken 90 days back. It entirely depends on the length of your hair and even body hair can be used as a substitute for testing in lieu of absence of scalp hair.
Still it can be tested by other means like the blood, urine, saliva and even fingernails. Blood, saliva and urine test will have different retention times as per the frequency of smoking. Still if you are looking for answers to how long does marijuana stay in your blood, urine and saliva? Then here is the detection time description.
Blood drug test- Frequent smokers:
THC: 4-8 hours after smoking
THC by-product: 2 weeks plus after smoking
Blood drug test- Infrequent smokers:
THC: 3-4 hours after smoking
THC by-product: 2-3 days after smoking
Urine drug test- Frequent smokers:
THC by-product: 2 weeks to 30 days after smoking
Urine drug test- Infrequent smokers:
THC by-product: up to 10 days after smoking
The least accurate test is that of saliva. Although THC can be retained in saliva for 3-5 days max but still it is not something concrete.
How Come Marijuana Takes Longer To Leave The Body Than Other Drugs?
The duration of presence of the drug in your system completely depends on the frequency of your intake and the amount you ingest at a time. The frequent you are, the longer will be its stay in the body. Marijuana does take longer to leave the body than other drugs due to the fact that it is a fat-soluble drug. Once consumed within the body, it is broken down as metabolites which are fat-soluble and deposit themselves in the fat cells of important body organs like liver, kidney and brain. This is unlike the other drugs which are actually water-soluble and tend to get out of the body more easily.
Also the fat cells are to be “burnt” to provide energy to the body. So if you are inactive, chances are that neither is you burning away those fat cells nor the marijuana metabolites contained in them. Obese people will find it even more difficult to get rid of it, as their fat cells have more volume and needs excessive burning exercises. A limited diet combined with exercises can be useful in eliminating the metabolites containing fat cells. However these metabolites will no longer give a sensation of feeling “high”.
Marijuana drug test
Basically two types of marijuana drug testing are available presently, one is the professional drug testing while the other one is home drug testing. The former one is conducted at laboratories by medics while the latter can be performed easily by parents at home. Typically a drug testing tool-kit is made use of at home. However, these home based tests might give false positive results, so one need to be careful about that.
Urine testing is by far the most effective means of marijuana testing as it can show results even months after you took your shot. The urine drug test directed to marijuana users is also termed as urinalysis. Other simple yet effective testing method is the oral method. It is cheap and is widely used as a testing method in school, colleges and organizations.
Marijuana Drug Testing Facts
There are certain myths and facts as well for the tests which are done to detect presence of marijuana in the body. Generally a simple drug test will search for small amounts of drug. Higher concentrations of it will render a Positive drug screen. These are tested after the screening teat to reduce the possibilities of a false positive result.
Marijuana Hair test:
It is the most accurate test but researches say that people with darker shade of hair or high melanin content are more sensitive towards it. It has been found that gray here has reduced capacity to retain the drug from bloodstream and will have a lower discovery rate. Even humidity has an affect on the marijuana content in hair follicles and tends to degrade it.
Marijuana Blood test:
these tests majorly look for the active drug minus the metabolites. The concentration of THC is usually low in blood and lasts not more than 12 to 24 hours.
Saliva test:
it is not at all accurate as THC hardly passes itself to oral fluids and would not be retained for even more than an hour.
Marijuana Urine test:
it is accurately used for testing the byproducts of THC like THC-COOH which is secreted with urine. The by product continue to be present in urine even after several weeks of usage so if you are a frequent user and want to test negative for this test, then abstain from it.
Marijuana Sweat test:
when urine test is not practical, sweat test is done from patches of it on skin. It is not accurate though.
How to pass a Marijuana drug test?
Marijuana drug tests are quite often seen now in workplace, sports, especially it is conducted at the time of joining of any applicant to know about the history of the job seeker. In such a situation, a worthy person might lose his job or will be denied one if he/she tests positive to the examination. Thus many people try to find ways to pass the test and come clean after an examination.
Use of detox products is by far the most effective means to render themselves clean. But before that, you can drink lots of water like say at least 2 liters every day. Water being a natural cleansing agent helps in cleaning out the drug from your body. For urinalysis, give only the drops of the midstream and preferably of the fifth urination of the day. Some even resort to taking vitamin B tablets supposedly as it clears the body of marijuana. Exercising and diet is another means to get rid of the drug from your body.
Exercising will burn the fat cells in your body typically where the THC metabolites resides. However, stop exercising a few days before the test and also refrain from certain medication just 2-3 days prior to the examination. But these methods are viable only if you take the drug orally, if you are a smoker hardly you will be benefited. So in such a case you can try to give a substitute sample of urine which is not yours and pass the test.
Medical Marijuana
Marijuana is always seen as a dreaded street drug, but before you jump to conclusions let us inform that it has certain medicinal properties as well. It has ability to curtail pain and is thereby used to treat patients with chronic pain. It also enhances the appetite of those suffering from anorexia nervosa and arrests the seizures of epileptic patients. Research shows that it even has ability to stop the spread of certain cancer causing cells, thus it has anti-cancer traits as well.
Medicinal marijuana has as long as 17 diversified clinical implications some of which are; hepatitis, diabetes mellitus, gliomas, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, dystopia, sclerosis and hypertension. To much of surprise, smoking of marijuana relieves people of injuries to their spinal chord. To render a drug fit for medical applications, its benefits should outdo the side effects. In case of marijuana, the detrimental side effects lower the chances of it being declared as a medical boon.
Marijuana Effects
Nerves cells are those sections of the brain where we get are memories formed. Smoking marijuana affects that section greatly. It might so happen that a regular smoker might suffer from memory loss of short term basis and will not be able to recall what happened just a while ago. They may suffer from loss of concentration in any of their daily activity. High doses of it can lead to loss of brain cells, and they might suffer from acute depression, chronic instability and nervousness as well as personality disorders. One can even acquire very deadly mental ailment like schizophrenia.
THC tends to attack the central nervous system which controls our thoughts, actions, concentration and organized movements. It hits the cerebellum basal ganglia, which controls our movements and posture. The person might tend to hallucinate and may act illogically; his talks and action will be difficult to comprehend. Smoking marijuana causes more effects on brain as in this way the THC gets deposited more in the brain cells. Chewing or eating the plant will not have that much effect as compared to smoking. It also increases the heartbeats from a normal 70 per minute to say suppose 90-120 beats per minute.
Marijuana withdrawal symptoms
Often when an addict is made to do away with the drug as a part of detox program, he or she might become increasingly restless and uncontrollable sometimes. These are the withdrawal symptoms and are termed as dysphoria. The first and foremost symptom is that of depression. Violence can also be seen in many and they become extremely destructive while some will suffer from unknown fears or anxiety.
The withdrawal from marijuana can affect profoundly the psychological insights of the patients. If one is a heavy smoker then his/her dreaming mechanism and consciousness, both are affected badly. The drug interferes with the ability to think and the person feels hallucinated. Once the addict has left the drug, he will start having recurring dreams or nightmares for that matter. The addict will start remembering dreams seen long ago and upon waking up will feel extremely anxious and impatient.
Some remember past sad event from their lives which often are suffered as nightmares. This surely throws them into deep depression as probably the very reason they got hooked on to marijuana was to forget those traumatic events in their lives. Due to this psychological withdrawal symptom the patient fears to sleep so as to stop the dream from recurring. This causes irregular sleep pattern. Addicts even start having fear of loneliness, they simply get agitated when left alone and might get seizures.
Some will even try to commit suicide, thus during this phase the patient must be kept in controlled environment under the vigilant supervision of trained professionals to handle such situations. This a very crucial time for the patient and he/she might need a lot of counseling, care and concern. Family and friends needs to be very supportive at this time and should not be intolerant or impatient and expect some magic right away. The withdrawal phase might take anything from some weeks to months.
Marijuana Pictures
image 1 : marijuana plant pictures
source: breakthematrix.com
image 2 : marijuana (weed) picture
picture 3 : marijuana uses
picture 4: marijuana effects
Marijuana Facts
How many times does someone have to take marijuana to become an addict?
It all depends on the genetic set up of any person. Some get addicted just immediately while some tend to after certain dosage.
Is marijuana used as a treatment for diabetes?
Yes cannabis extracts are potentially being utilized to treat diabetes to an extent. It is supposed to have anti-inflammatory properties or actions which can soothe arterial inflammation common in diabetes mellitus. Also, the blood pressure of a diabetic can shoot up anytime and can be detrimental. Marijuana is supposedly helpful in lowering the blood pressure over time.
For further information on this topic see this research paper from the American Alliance for Medical Cannabis (AAMC).
What is industrial hemp? How does it differ from marijuana?
Hemp is also a specie of cannabis but it differs from marijuana. It only contains less than 1 percent of THC. It is kind of anti-THC as it blocks the effects of it due to the presence of cannabidiol (CBD) and thus also called anti- marijuana.
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by on 15. Aug, 2010 in Addictions-and-recovery
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