Contributor: Asia Mayfield
You partied during your Las Vegas vacation, sucking on cannabis joints and blunts like they were lollipops. Now, you’re facing an employer drug test.
Uh-oh.
Don’t panic. You might still be able to salvage this situation. THC is fat-soluble, which means that the compound can be dissolved in fat. That’s why employers can still catch pot-smokers months after they took their last hit. THC is stored in your fatty tissue. It can take three months for a heavy smoker to clear the system naturally.
Now, your options depend on what you’re facing.
What Kind of Test?
Before you do anything else, you need to figure out what type of test you have to beat. Urine analysis is the most common. Fortunately for cannabis lovers across the country, urine tests are also the easiest to beat, both naturally and with help.
THC can technically be detected in your hair for years, although most tests use a 1.5-inch sample, which detects the past 90 days of usage. Urine, however, offers a much shorter testing period. If you stop smoking, you should be able to pass a urine test within a week or two.
What are your options?
Alright. Now that you know what kind of test to expect, it’s time to go over your options.
Home Remedies
These are dangerous and don’t work. Drinking bleach, cranberry juice, etc., isn’t going to do anything for you.
The only “home remedy” that has any chance of working is exercising. If you’re trying to beat a hair test, you might be able to get the THC out of your system sooner if you lose fat and speed up your metabolism.
Synthetic Urine
Synthetic urine salesmen abound online. Getting your hands on the product doesn’t seem like it will be a problem. The real question is- does it work?
Probably not. Anecdotal stories are floating around online of people who swear by synthetic urine, but the consensus is that you’re probably wasting your time.
Foreign Urine
Do you have understanding friends with drug-free urine? You can try using it. There are a lot of problems with this method, though. For one, it’s gross. Also, fresh urine is warm when it comes out of your body. If you use somebody else’s pee, in addition to sneaking it into the bathroom, you have to keep it warm.
The best advice is to put the urine in some sort of test tube or thin container and strap it to your thigh. Just make sure it doesn’t leak.
Adulterants
Adding adulterants to your urine, especially regular household chemicals, is a bad idea.
According to Paul Armentano, NORML’s Deputy Director, an adulterant is “something that is added to the sample itself in hopes that that’s going to create a false negative result… that’s your sort of perfect example of a cat-and-mouse game. There are certain products that, when added to urine, can throw off the sensitivity of the test. In most cases, over time, the drug testing industry becomes aware of what those adulterants are, and they either begin to screen for the adulterant itself, or they check some sort of composition of the urine that they anticipate will be altered when an adulterant is used.”
So, by the time you figure out what adulterant to use, drug testing labs have cottoned on as well.
Cleanses
The evidence regarding cleanses is mixed. These juices and energy drink promise to flush THC out of your system. You can find what you need at smoke shops and vitamin stores, although you may need to be discreet. Don’t announce to the clerk that you’re trying to beat a drug test.
Armentano adds that “most of the products available in those sorts of facilities that involve consuming any sort of fluid, by and large, are simply diuretics and they may work to some degree, but they’re largely overpriced and they certainly over-promise.”
You can try to dilute your urine yourself, but you might be detected. Lab technicians are trained to spot suspicious samples. If your urine is too diluted, it may be flagged for additional testing.
There are also cleanses and shampoos designed for your hair. The evidence backing up these products is even murkier.
Conclusion
If you’re going to be drug tested while you still have THC in your system, your best bet is to hope for a urine test. At that point, you can try a cleanse, substitute your urine for someone else’s, or you can work out and drink fluids profusely for a week in an attempt to flush out your system naturally.
If you’re up against a hair test, your task is a lot harder.
Hey, you could always move to Las Vegas. Starting in January 2020, most employers will be barred from conducting pre-employment cannabis drug tests.
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