
Getting high can be quite exhilarating, but sometimes it can also fade away quite fast. Interestingly enough, the fact that the psychoactive effects of an edible can’t be felt anymore does not necessarily imply that traces of the compounds are no longer in your system.
This is because it takes longer for the body to start eliminating the traces of the compounds than it does for their side effects to wear off. This, of course, leads to the question: how long do cannabis edibles stay in your system, and do they show up on drug tests?
Well, we provide a detailed answer to this question and more below.
The term “edibles” is an umbrella description for any type of food product that has been infused with cannabis or marijuana.
Edibles do produce a high similar to the kind one gets when you smoke marijuana. However, to make sure that the active ingredients in cannabis (responsible for its psychoactive property) are indeed present in an edible, the cannabis plant has to be processed in a very specific way.
The effects of edibles are only felt with proper processing unlike smoke or vape.
Examples of food products that can be infused with marijuana to create an edible include candies, gummies, beverages, tinctures, chocolates, lozenges, and baked goods like brownies.
While many continue to smoke marijuana, consuming edibles has gotten more popular in recent times.
When marijuana is introduced into the body system through vaping or smoking, it is absorbed directly into the bloodstream. When ingested through an edible like baked goods andย gummies, however, it has to undergo a process in the digestive system particularly in the liver and other bodily organs.
The process, of course, takes more than 24 hours during which it will stay in your system.ย
This is why sometimes, the side effects of edibles take between thirty minutes to a couple of hours before they are felt.
Once cannabis edibles are processed in the digestive system, the delta-9 THC in edibles is broken down into 11-hydroxy THC. This digestive system conversion does not happen during smoking or vaping, and that is why the effects of edible consumption usually stay in your system longer and are often stronger than that of smoking.
Do edibles show up in drug tests? Well, yes, edibles do show up on drug tests. They are food products that contain THC, and as long as there are traces of THC in the body and digestive system, it will show up during a drug test.ย
In fact, it has been proven that consuming edibles does require longer time for processing in the bloodstream, and as such the THC tends to stay longer as well. Some can even stay as long as 30 days or more than 30 days.
As we’ll see below, an important factor to detect THC during a drug test is the kind of test in question.
Again, the exact time taken for cannabis edibles to remain in the system depends on the individual’s biological make up. The side effects of edibles are quite subjective.
Generally, though, THC absorbed into the body system through smoking may last a lot more than 24 hours, usually up to three to four days, while consuming an edible like baked goods may require up to twelve days before all traces of the compound vanish from the body.
Ultimately, whether or not cannabis products show up on drug tests depends strongly on which kind of drug test is being administered.
It should also be said that side effects of edibles have no effect on how long it stays in the system.
While chemicals in marijuana tend to hang around the body for more than 24 hours after they’ve been consumed, they stay longer in certain parts of the body than others. For instance, in the case of a urine test where the subject’s urine sample is tested for THC, it is indeed possible to detect THC and other cannabis products that were consumed within 3 – 30 days.
As we’ll see below, to detect THC taken for more than 30 days is also possible with the right test.
Another way to detect THC or test for other cannabis residue in the body system is to test the subject’s blood instead of the urine. In cases where tests are carried out on blood samples, residues will be found only if the individual consumed marijuana within 3-4 hours before the test was administered.
It is possible to check for the presence of cannabis compounds by testing the subject’s hair follicles. In fact, testing hair follicles is the most thorough way of testing for cannabis as they tend to find chemicals that were consumed as far back as three months or 90 days.
The 90 days duration for hair is, of course, much longer than 30 days for urine tests. In fact, sometimes hair follicles tests can even be longer than 90 days.
Testing hair follicles is relatively rare, however, thanks to the expensive and slow nature of the test. Urine tests are without a doubt the most common.
Cannabis consumption is legal in several states, and more and more people continue to gravitate towards getting their dose of cannabis through edibles like in baked goods. Thanks to their infusion in various food types and elimination of the need for inhaling smoke, edibles are seen as a healthier alternative by many.
For those wondering, do edibles show up in drug tests? Well, just as it is with smoking, consuming cannabis edibles will show up on drug tests and may even stay longer in the digestive system because of the sheer amount of time it takes for the food item to be completely processed.ย
While chemicals from cannabis can stay in the body and be detected by drug tests for up to 90 days, this is only possible via drug tests using hair follicles.
Blood tests and saliva tests only show positive results for compounds consumed within a few days while urine tests show results up to 30 days after initial consumption.ย
Tests for THC in edibles can also be carried out for smoke or vape.
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