How Long Do Edibles Stay in Your System?

There are many cannabis hobbyists who believe they have all the answers: what the best soil for growing is, what strain hits you the hardest, and what munchies pair best with a smoking session. When it comes to the area of cannabis duration and drug testing, however, you cannot take folk wisdom as an answer - you need the hard numbers. Whether you are applying for a new job or need a clean bill of health, you may be wondering how long edibles stay in your system. The answer depends on the type of edibles and the science behind how they get you high.

Highs and Lows

When you smoke cannabis, the lungs absorb the THC within the smoke and pass it into your bloodstream. As a result, you may begin to feel the effects of good bud immediately after smoking. By contrast, edibles may take hours to kick in, even if you take steps to make them do their thing faster. They also transfer the THC to your blood, but they do so through the liver, a slower-acting organ than the lungs. That affects your high (since the liver turns the THC into a more potent version of the drug) and affects the way that THC is stored within your body, affecting the potential for a drug test.

How long do weed edibles stay in your system? Sometimes longer than you think. That's because our bodies burn fat whenever we get hungry, potentially releasing the THC within it whenever it has been absorbed. If THC is in edible form, it is almost certainly absorbed into fat cells since nutrition is turned into fat with every meal. If this fat is burned off, the THC re-enters our system, potentially showing up on a drug test.

Testing Schedules

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Most drug tests that people will run into, especially for work-related purposes, are urine tests. Some companies may never once ask for a drug test, especially in areas where drug testing is restricted or outright banned. Nevertheless, it is perfectly legal for a potential employer to demand a drug test in most places. Due to the low cost of urine tests, they tend to be the most popular for job screening. How long do edibles stay in your system for a urine test? The good news is that this is one of the least accurate forms of testing: unlike blood or hair tests, urine tests are notoriously bad in terms of gauging THC levels and detecting synthetic urine. The bad news is that they will detect THC if you have used cannabis recently.

The rule of thumb usually applied to urine tests is three weeks clean: you may get away with less time spent without weed, but there are no guarantees. There are, of course, exceptions. Flushing your system by drinking a large quantity of water (1 gallon in the span of a day) can potentially eliminate a large amount of THC. However, it also runs the risk of diluting the urine specimen, requiring a re-test (which can be disastrous if you've already started celebrating!). Additionally, overeating before a test reduces the amount of fat burned, potentially preventing THC in cells from being released.

Quantity and Quality

High-THC strains of cannabis result in a greater likelihood of the compound staying in your system for a longer period of time. Smoking low-grade or mid-grade cannabis can prevent the absorption of THC in the same quantity, making it possible for you to pass a clean test in less time. At the lowest end of the spectrum, a minimal amount of low-grade cannabis may pass out of your system within just three days. By contrast, a large amount of high-grade cannabis may take a full month or more to be totally gone.

Other Tests

If you have to pass a more complex test than a urine test, the answer to how long edibles stay in your system is different. A saliva test, for example, cannot detect the presence of THC after just three days, making this a great way to have fun while still showing up clean. A blood test also has only three to four days' worth of detection since our blood cycle is fairly fast. When it comes to a hair test, how long do edibles stay in your system for a drug test? This is the toughest of them all since hair can detect the presence of THC (and other drugs, like cocaine) for a whopping 90 days. If you anticipate having to take a hair test, you will be on the hook for the most prolonged period of time and will need the most discipline to stay away from marijuana products.

Do you have any strategies when it comes to drug testing? How have you found that certain types of cannabis impact you? Let us know in the comments below!