Welcome to Science Weedly. Here we look into the science of weed to try to figure out different marijuana-related problems. The biggest one is ‘How to pass a drug test if you’ve smoked weed’. The only people who are concern about how to pass a drug test are in most cases harmless drug users.
We use published peer-reviewed scientific articles about marijuana, it’s effect on people and society, to try address the problems as best as scientifically possible.
How Many People Fail A Drug Test?
The first thing we need to address is how many people are actually affected by drug tests. Obviously, almost everybody has to provide a urine sample for a drug test. More than 60% of employers have admitted to randomly conducting drug tests.
And, if we’re honest, a lot of people smoke weed. But there are also people who don’t do drugs, weird as that may be in our time.
How many people are threatened by drug tests?
A significant number, actually.
For instance, the Pennsylvania Manufacturer’s Association has tested 870 individuals to see how people behave when it comes to drug testing (you can get the summary of the study here).
Here are the results. You might not even be surprised by them:
Everyone should be tested and should test negative. But it appears that only 68% of people are ‘completely innocent’ of doing drugs. ‘Appears’ is the key word here – a significant portion of these people used synthetic urine to fool a drug test.
13% of people tested positive. Plain and simple. These are the people who knew they were using drugs but did nothing about it (no synthetic urine or THC detox). That’s quite foolish.
19% of people, however, refused to take a drug test. They either tried to postpone it or just skipped the drug testing day. The report concludes that “the fact that 19% refuse to take drug tests as a condition of employment and 16% fail these tests raise a red flag and a real concern about this issue.”
In essence, 32% of people still don’t know how to pass a drug test. 13% are failing a drug test foolishly and 19% live in fear of a drug test. Mind you; these are all urine drug tests. In hair drug testing, for example, the fail rate is higher (you can read about the best ways of how to pass a hair drug test here).
This post will help everybody who needs to pass a drug test. But let’s first understand the problem
Why Are So Many People Getting Caught With THC In Their Urine?
Cannabis use is the primary reason why people fail a drug test. Despite it being legal in several states, drug tests will pick it up without a problem. Alcohol, for example, is also legal but you can’t drink on the job, right? The same analogy is true for weed.
The key issue with marijuana is that a urine drug test can detect marijuana use up to 90 days after the last use. Most of the other drugs, including opioids, heroin, meth, and so on are much more ‘serious drugs’ but can be detected for only about 7 days or less.
This is because the active molecule in weed – the THC or Tetrahydrocannabinol – is a lipophilic molecule. ‘Lipo’ = ‘Fat’ and ‘Philic’ = ‘Liking’. In essence, THC likes to attach itself to fat.
By attaching itself to fat tissue, it prolongs the time that is needed for all the THC to be eliminated out of your body. If you’re not sure about your situation, you can read more about how long does weed stay in your system and calculate THC elimination times here.
How To Pass A Drug Test In 2022
Nobody wants to fail a drug test. Nor does anybody enjoy living in fear of a drug test.
The best thing you can do – the only things you can actually do – is be prepared for a drug test. If you know, you might be randomly tested, you should have a plan in motion.
If you are ‘pissing hot’ with a drug test just a few days away, you only have to realistic options of how to pass a drug test:
- Option: Increase drug elimination as much as possible and hope for the best.
Think detox kits, not detox drinks; we’ve explained this in detail the THC detox post that primarily concerned marijuana use.
- Option: Switch your urine with synthetic urine.
The lab-made synthetic urine mimics the real urine in every way. It’s the only 100% proof way to pass a drug test. You should check out our post about the most reliable and best synthetic urine kits to use.
The whole THC detox ordeal can be a long one. Detoxing all the marijuana out of your system might take as long as 10 days or even longer.
On the other hand, using synthetic urine is a foolproof way of passing a drug test. It might be a bit riskier but if you use the fake pee correctly there is no laboratory that can tell between a synthetic urine and real urine.
The decision of how you want to approach the drug test really comes down to two factors:
- How long is it before all the drugs will be flushed out of your body in a natural way?
- When is your drug test scheduled?
Let’s say you have a drug test in a week. If you only smoked one joint, it will be flushed out in a week and you don’t have to do anything.
If you are a moderate smoker, you really need to invest in detox kits, higher activity levels, drinking water, sweating it all out in sauna and so on.
If you are a chronic smoker even the best THC detox won’t help you pass a drug test. In that case, the synthetic urine might be the only option.
Frequently Asked Questions
It really depends on the drugs and their lipophilic/hydrophilic properties. THC, the active substance in cannabis, takes the longest to leave the body. It can be detected up to 90 days with urinalysis testing.
Pretty much every drug can show up on a drug test. You have 5-panel and 10-panel drug test kits.
The most extensive is the 12-panel drug test that checks for amphetamines, marijuana (THC), opiates, methamphetamines, phencyclidine (PCP), benzodiazepines, barbiturates, methadone, oxycodone, ecstasy, and propohyphene.
For most drugs, yes. For weed, usually no. Even a moderate smoker will have to wait for more than 10 days to produce a THC-free urine sample that can pass a 50 ng/ml THC drug test.
One option to pass a drug test in 10 days is to start with a THC detox. Another is to use synthetic urine.
The most common methods are detox kits, detox drinks, increased physical activity (especially cardio), low-calorie diet followed by high-calorie diet, drinking plenty of water and ever sweating it out in sauna.
The most effective are the detox kits like Toxin Rid programs that detox your body via increased feces production and urination.
Using drugs is the most obvious thing to avoid before a drug test.
Apart from that, resistance weight training or anything to do with heavy lifting should be avoided.
Additional substances you should avoid are alcohol, caffeine, vitamin B (especially B12). These are naturally-occuring diuretics and might dilute your urine too much.
Caffeine in coffee is a diuretic. Drinking coffee might therefore dilute your urine and make it a bit less difficult to pass a drug test. Nonetheless, the effect usually not significant enough to pass a drug test just by drinking coffee.
On the other hand, drinking too much coffee might dilute your urine too much. This can render the urine useless for a standard urinary analysis.
Detox drinks cannot be directly detected by lab tests. Even the ingredients of detox drinks such as caffeine, vitamin B12 or niacin are not detected by drug panel tests.
However, lab test might detect if a urine sample is too diluted. This might be because you drank too much coffee, tea, detox drinks or just water in general. The labs cannot differentiate between drinking too much coffee and drinking a detox drinks; that’s why for all intents and purposes, detox drinks are virtually undetectable by lab tests.
Niacin can increase urine creation. This, in turn, can lower the concentration of chemicals, including drugs like THC, in your urine. This can have a positive effect when taking a urine drug test but it is usually not significant enough to pass a drug test just by using niacin.
Cranberry juice can, as we all know, increase urination and thus the speedy release of drugs from our system. However, when it comes to weed, only about 20% of THC is eliminated via urine (the rest goes out via feces and sweating). By itself cranberry juice is not enough to help us pass a drug test.
If you’re facing an imminent drug test within the next few days, or even in 24 hours, there is only one option left: Synthetic urine.
Most of the people who get regularly tested have a synthetic urine kit in stock at home already. You can find a reliable fake pee here.
Addressing Weed-Related Science A Week At A Time
We’ll try to bring to you interesting scientific discoveries that involve weed and THC-related substances every week. Stay tuned.