I’m sure this has been done before, but I did a search and couldn’t find an answer to my question. If you have a link to an applicable thread, that would be very useful.
I have a gig coming up that requires a drug test. How long does it take for “commonly” used drugs to leave your system?
:smack: :eek: :rolleyes:
The basic test will look for:
THC
Cocaine
Amphetamines
Opiates/Opiods
Benzos
How long they last is a function of how much you use and when the last time you used is. Water Soluble drugs like cocaine will flush out much faster (I want to say they’re gone within a few days) then fat soluble drugs like THC which I beleive can stay in your system for weeks.
Of course if they do a hair test, well then they can detect back as far as your hair will let them.
Do a little research on the drugs I mentioned and the info is out there.
Thanks for the info. That’s pretty much what I thought, and was looking for a second opinion.
Links!
Drug test worries
How Do These Drug Test-Beating Potions Work?
Hot To Beat An Employer’s Drug Test!!!
Really, REALLY stupid question about piss tests
How long does marijuana stay detectable?
Here’s a handy chart.
Of course, marijuana lingers the longest but detection period is heavily dependent on how much you’ve used.
For a gig - you mean the test isn’t to make sure you’ve taken enough ?
When I increased my life insurance a few years ago, I was required to provide (among other things) urine for a drug screen. My insurance man had a vested interest in me qualifying; it was funny seeing him rattle off how long the metabolites of various recreational drugs could be detected. He had his calendar open, as he said that marijuana would be detected for 3 weeks. “So,” he said, “could I have the nurse stop by a month from today?”. 
Testing positive for pot depends entirely on a variety of factors including how often/much you smoke, how active your lifestyle is, and how concentrated your urine is when you take the test. Right off the bat you can rule out using the potions and crap they want to sell you to pass the test. I speak from personal experience…they do not work. The only guarantee is to not smoke pot for about 8 weeks and you should be good to go.
I’d take Bongmaster as the authority on such things, judging from his user name.
Speaking as a lab tech who has done drug testing, the drug that stays in your system the longest is marijuana. I’ve read studies where people have tested positive 3 months (!!!) after abstaining, however these people were elite chronic users. Most people should be flushed out after 2 weeks to a month. (flushed out meaning below the cutoff at whatever lab you’re being tested at, at mine its 15ng/mL by GCMS)
The way we do it is to first screen everyone by using a card-type immunoassay. These are the little plastic cards with different lanes for different drugs that the lab people add urine to. These have relatively low sensitivity and are prone to interferences. I think I remember the detection cutoff for these is 50 ng/mL
Any positives are then tested by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GCMS) for confirmation. These are extremely sensitive and not prone to interferences.
Urine flush kits are snake oil, however some companies (such as ‘urine luck’ IIRC) sell adulterants that you’re supposed to add to your urine. These work by introducing a strong reducing agent into the urine which can mess with immunoassays. These will often cause the immunoassay result to be ‘invalid’ in which case we go directly to GCMS where we can see the peak for the adulterant.
I’ve done the testing as well, and Nunuvit Boy is right. There’s a quick and dirty test with a high threshold to avoid the more expensive and sensitive GC-MS test. If they go to the mass spec, you’re toast. The best chance is to be under the bar on the initial test. Flushing the system might help you by diluting the metabolites, but highly dilute urine might trigger a more sensitive test anyway.
This will go contrary to Bongmaster, and could be apocryphal, but the sister of one of my friends swears by the “potions” that you can buy to detox yourself. She works for DFACS, and I believe marijuana is her drug of choice. but you can’t just go into a store and ask for “that drug detox potion” or they will turn you away. You have to ask for it by name.
Not being a drug user, I don’t know them by name.
I also work with a drug testing lab, and I agree with everything in Nunavut Boy’s post. The so-called “drug busters” either just try to dilute one’s urine with massive amounts of liquid (indeed, the instructions typically state to drink large amounts of water with the potion) or are products that supposedly bind to drugs to make them unrecognizable. The problem with the first idea is that immunoassays also measure creatine, a naturally occuring byproduct of muscle activity. If the level of creatine is markedly low, the lab will either order a GC/MS confirmation or instantly call the sample positive. The binding idea doesn’t work because (1) GC/MS samples are extensively extracted to remove interferents and (2) the MS shatters the sample into atomic fragments. The chances of an interferent surviving either action unharmed are essentially nil.
Most drugs will be gone within a week, and for most users, pot within a month.
Only the fattest, hardest smokers should be detectable beyond that.
Myself, I’m unhappy to say, I could even pass a hair test now that it’s been four months and I keep it 7/8". :mad: