Pot smokers often wonder how long they’d have to tolerate the traces of weed in their hair. Interestingly weed can last in the body for a much longer time compared to other drugs.
In fact, the latest survey carried out by the Quest Diagnostics suggests, ‘almost half of the positives results obtained from drug tests are due to the presence of marijuana’. This, of course, has a direct correlation to the persistence of the weed in hair.
A vast array of factors influences the time span during which weed can be found in the body post-consumption. It includes the quantity and regularity of usage.
Detecting marijuana through urine drug test gives results for the past couple of days, a week or two. However, marijuana consumed months ago can easily be found in your system through hair drug tests.
What Is A Hair Drug Test?
A hair follicle drug test is similar to the urine drug test, as they are both conducted to examine the existence of THC-COOH in the body. This substance is found in your system when the THC enters into the body and reacts. To put it simply, THC is the main compound in weed that induces the feeling of ‘stoned’ or ¨high.
Regular or habitual use of marijuana leads to more stores of THC and THC-OOH in the system. The abundance of these substances results in their integration with the blood. Furthermore, these substances are sponged by the fat cells in the body.
As more and more time passes, the fat cells multiply & these substances that were previously absorbed are released back into your blood flow. The body reacts to these reinstituted compounds, treating them as toxins. For this reason, these toxins are excreted in the urine & hair follicles around the body.
Because your system excretes these toxins, urine and hair drug tests will come out positive.
How Is THC Linked With the Hair Drug Test?
The link of THC with the hair follicle drug test may seem complicated. But it is actually quite simple to understand. As discussed above, the residue ‘THC-COOH’ gets released into the bloodstream after the consumption of marijuana. The blood carrying residue flows into the body and the scalp. It further leads in the settling of THC-COOH into the hair follicles.
This means that the metabolite settles into the foundation of the hair. Since the hair’s base contains the residue THC-COOH, when the hair grows the metabolites can actually be detected through a hair drug test.
What Happens In A Hair Drug Test?
Hair drug tests are extremely accurate. For this reason, they have the ability to identify even the most negligible deposits of THC in the hair. A hair drug test requires testing of about 100 to 200 hair strands.
Hair strands of about 1.5 inches long are ideally used for the hair drug test examination. Hair growth for most people is rather uniform. Since an inch and a half hair strand is considered to be credible enough, this is standardized length used to conduct hair drug tests.
Since there are exceptions, one being a lot of people have hair shorter than 1.5 inches in length. In such a case, the hair sample is taken from any other area in the body. Many hair drug testing clinics use beard hair as a sample.
So, what can result in a positive hair drug test?
Irregular consumers of weed do not have to fret about the hair drug test. This is because the quantity of THC found in their systems rarely reaches beyond the limit necessary for a hair drug test to result as positive. The quantity of THC found in a couple of joints does not overcome the limit necessary for a hair drug test to come back positive.
Only when there is overconsumption or limitless usage of marijuana, is there a basis for its presence to become detectable in the hair follicles. So, for regular, habitual and heavy users, the possibility of exceeding the cut-off is more significant and more likely.
How Long Does Weed Stay In Your Hair?
It takes an estimate of 3 months for a 1.5-inch hair strand to grow on your body. From this information, it is easy to conclude that the use of marijuana can be discovered for up to 90 days from consumption via a hair drug test.
If the hair strand being tested is longer than 1.5 inches (from the scalp or any other body part, for example, the beard), the testers are unable to consider it credible enough to provide accurate results for the hair drug test. However, it may be surprising to know that even frequent marijuana users have found THC particles in the hair follicles after several years of abstinence.
What Is The Accuracy Of Hair Drug Tests?
These examinations are known for how accurate they are. In fact, they are actually renowned for offering meticulous results. This is why they have developed a highly esteemed reputation for being excellent indicators of weed consumption history.
As far as the urine drug test is concerned, the detection limit is around 20-50 nanograms per milliliter. But hair drug tests have outstanding ability to identify marijuana usage at around 1ng per ml which adds to their credibility. (A nanogram is one-billionth of a gram)
How To Pass A Hair Drug Test?
There is no way to pass a hair drug test for a regular marijuana consumer through natural ways of detoxing. Typical, everyday use shampoos, available in stores fail to remove toxins from your hair. Surprisingly enough even bleaches fail to cleanse off the THC-COOH from your hair follicles. This is because these substances are integrated with the hair’s foundation.
However, despite being a challenging obstacle, a hair drug test CAN be defeated.
Shampoo For Drug Test
Hair Follicle Shampoo
Although a typical, store-purchased shampoo is unable to expunge the THC metabolites or cover them, there are multiple high-density hair products that can be of assistance.
The most reliable concentrated product available in the market is the Clear Choice Hair Follicle Shampoo. This brand has been known for developing products that combat drug tests for more than 25 years now and is one of the leading brands in the industry.
The Drug Test Shampoo has the ability to smother and coat the hair strands and mask the THC substances that are deeply integrated within. The product contains an acidic base which expertly disguises the strands of drug toxins without damaging the hair follicles.
On the other hand, the use of bleach or other products with strong chemicals to cleanse the hair does less to remove or cloak the THC-COOH metabolites and does more harm to the hair’s external structure and texture.
The Hair Follicle Shampoo comes with directions of use, listing instructions that are imperative to follow. Use of any other hair products should be avoided to prevent the shampoo not working!!! As long as the instructions are religiously followed, the Hair Drug Test Shampoo will be extremely useful to pass the hair test.