How Long Does Marijuana Stay In Your System?

Marijuana per se does not physically stay inside the body. However the main chemical component, Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) does.

Synthetically known as dronabinol, THC is natural, and is the main psychoactive substance in marijuana.

The chemical that causes a user to get high - THC is the reason people smoke weed!

Although this effect lasts for only a couple of hours, traces of THC stay in the body much longer.

Why Does THC stay in the body so long?

THC will stay inside your body much longer than most recreational drugs. This is because it is broken down into by-products known as metabolites. Metabolites are those substances involved in metabolism, either as a product of the process or as a substance necessary for or which takes part in metabolism.

These metabolites are stored in fatty tissues - and stay there for a long while! These fatty tissues are often a part of organs such as the brain, liver or kidneys. Since the body eliminates them in much the same way as it does Vitamin A - through urine and feces - it stays in a user's system much longer than any other drug!

However, how long these metabolites linger in the body varies from person to person. There is no definite timetable applicable to everyone because the length of time THC's metabolites remain in the body is affected by various factors.

Generally, we can group these factors into two:

A person's physiological makeup

The frequency and amount of drug use

From these two broad categories we can list several more factors as follows:

Physiological makeup

Height
Weight
Body fat
Age

As well as,

Current state of health
Frequency and/or regularity of exercise or work out
State of mind or stress level
Metabolism or metabolic rate
Fluid intake

Frequency and amount of drug use

Frequency of drug use (how many times do you use marijuana per day/per week/per month/rarely?)
Quantity of drug use (how much marijuana do you use each time?)
Length of time of consistent drug use (do you use marijuana daily/a few times a week/a few times a month/?)
Quality of the drug or potency of the strain (this refers to the concentration of THC in the marijuana plant)
Degree of tolerance
Degree of intoxication

Once THC is broken down into metabolites it is easily absorbed by the bloodstream so that when you smoke marijuana, in a matter of just a few minutes it can already be detected. However, ingesting it orally, may take longer, about 20 minutes to 1 and a half hours, for THC to become fully detectable.

Generally speaking, an infrequent user with a fast metabolism (or low body fat) would have the shortest detection times. On the other hand, frequent users with a slow metabolism will have the longest detection times.

First of all, they have more fat wherein to store metabolites. Also, they use marijuana often so metabolites tend to aggregate. For most people, detectable levels of THC will stay for approximately 2-5 days. About 3 weeks is enough to get THC out of your system if you happen to belong in the average category.

However, for the daily, heavy user, THC can be detected for up to 30 days or even more! With this, it is safe to assume that 30 days would be enough to eliminate all traces of metabolites out of your system, although we have a more scientific way to figure this out!

What if you can't actually quit weed?