How Long Does Marijuana Stay In Your System?

Marijuana is the most used and the popular drug with the least amount of harm done to the body. However, marijuana has a bad image in the world. Many cities and states in the US have classified marijuana as an illegal drug. However, many countries like Canada and some cities in the US are recognising the ground breaking benefits that marijuana actually has on the human body. Yes, marijuana can and is mostly misused but it has not caused any harmful problems to date as heroin or cocaine would.

Moreover, because of the benefits caused by marijuana, many countries are in the process of legalising marijuana use for medicinal and recreational purposes. However, many countries still classify it as an illegal drug and use tests, like the marijuana blood test, to find the level of marijuana in the system.

There are many tests for testing marijuana levels in the blood. However, there is no set exact test which can determine how long marijuana, hash, pot or weed stay in your system. There are many factors which can alter how long marijuana stays in the system. It can stay in the system for a few hours or maybe even from 10 to 30 days.

How Long Does Marijuana Stay in Your System?

In order to know how long marijuana stays in your system, you need to be aware of what marijuana actually is, how it is used, how your body processes it and how it can affect the body.

The post-marijuana effects stay in your system for a short period of time. The effects tend to almost fade away very quickly. However, the components in marijuana tend to break down at a different pace. Many components of marijuana tend to stay active for a long period of time and it all depends on how much marijuana a user smokes or ingests.

How Long Does Marijuana Stay In Your System?

Marijuana itself does not stay in your system for a long period of time. However, as it was already said, the chemicals in the weed stay in your system. The main and the most powerful chemical in marijuana is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). This chemical is what causes you the high you experience when smoking or ingesting marijuana. The chemical tends to stay in your body for weeks. This is because when marijuana passes from the lungs and enters the bloodstream, the THC bonds with the fat cells and gets stored in the body as fat. It breaks down over time. However, the rate at which it breaks down depends on a number of factors: how much marijuana is used, the rate and frequency it is used, the user’s metabolic rate, the amount of THC in the marijuana and whether the marijuana was smoked or ingested. When administering a marijuana blood test or marijuana in a urine test, THC and its by-product, 9-carboxy-THC, show up in the test even after 120 days or more.

What Exactly is THC?

According to the Drug Enforcement Administeration, marijuana contains almost 400 chemicals. Out of those 400 chemicals, THC is the most powerful chemical which is responsible for giving you the high effect. Marijuana from indica plants tends to have a higher level of THC whereas marijuana from sativa plants tend to have a lower level of THC but a higher level of cannabidiol.

How Is Marijuana Used?

Marijuana is usually and very commonly used by smoking it. It is rolled into a cigarette, more commonly known as a joint. However, some users prefer to ingest it directly as well. Marijuana can be baked into brownies or cakes or added to foods. Nowadays cannabis oil is also available for easy ingesting and greater ‘high’ effects. Ingesting marijuana has a longer effect than when it is smoked. So, when the marijuana is ingested, the body takes an hour or more to break down the chemicals in the marijuana.

Types of Marijuana Testing

It has been determined and researched that at some point in everyone’s lives, every person has come across marijuana or even tried it. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in 2015 alone, at least 11 million people between the ages of 18 to 25 have come across and used marijuana. It is a very common and widely used drug. That is why many jobs have potential employees take drug tests before they are ready to hand over the job to the potential candidate. Marijuana is still considered illegal in many parts of the world after all.

For testing the weed in the system, there exist a few tests which can accurately determine whether the user used marijuana or not.

• Marijuana blood tests exist as well. However, marijuana blood tests are not used very often. This is because when a user uses marijuana, the blood test has to be taken within a few hours when the marijuana is actually in the blood stream. Otherwise, the test may not work because the marijuana from the blood stream may pass from the body in the form of urine.
• A saliva test is similar to a marijuana blood test. If not taken within a few hours of marijuana use, the saliva test cannot determine whether the user used marijuana. It cannot detect the metabolites from marijuana.
• Hair strands are also tested for determining whether a person used marijuana or not. This test is very similar to urine tests because it can actually detect the metabolites of marijuana rather than actual marijuana. The hair strands are sent to a laboratory for testing for the metabolites and are screened.

Summary

There also exist many ways on how users can fool such marijuana drug tests. For example, “cleaning” the whole system. This involves drinking a lot of water and urinating frequently to lower the level of THC in the system.