How long does weed stay in your hair?

Cannabis seems like the most favored to substance we use to help us relax and even to have a good time. Its green, the opposite of mean and it’s all natural. Critics will have their say, but we can’t dispute the medicinal benefits cannabis has in treating a host of different conditions. But unfortunately sometimes you can end up in circumstances, where the use of marijuana or weed (as it is more commonly known) can land you in a lot of trouble. Say it’s a drug test at work, if you want to keep your job then you will need to pass the test. And for this purpose, you need to know how long does weed stay in your hair.

The first thing that you need to keep in mind is that hair isn’t normally used for drug tests, but it has its uses. If the tester wants to know if the tested person has been using marijuana over a long period of time then a hair drug test will be done. It is due to the property of the hair to keep THC in them, up to a full year! If you smoke every now and then and are not a regular user, then your chances of testing positive will be lower. If you smoke or use weed regularly then the test will definitely return as positive. Other tests like blood or saliva, will focus on the THC concentration levels in the tested substances. Whereas in the hair test, the substance being searched for is THC-COOH, a metabolite of THC and is a non-psychoactive byproduct of THC. If the levels of the substance in question are more than 50 ng/mL or higher then you will be in trouble. But if you are an infrequent user of marijuana then it is much less likely that the test will result in a positive. Eating or ingesting THC substances also lowers your chance of being detected on the drug test.

Hair tests are more accurate than their blood or saliva counterparts, they can detect concentrations up to 1 ng/mL. So if you’re a regular marijuana user, you are in trouble. For the test however, you need to have more than 50ng/mL to test positive in most cases, so if you have been clean in the past three months then you won’t be in much trouble. Because even if the hair follicles can hold THC-COOH for up to a year, the test can only go back up to 3 months. So you have some relaxation. Another way to increase your chances to pass the test, then you can cut your hair. Be sure to cut up to 2 inches or more because they use 1.5 inches of the hair. Another way you can is detox to get rid of the THC concentrates from your body and hair. But keep in mind, in most drug tests only blood and saliva is used and it is a rare occurrence that someone will do a hair drug test because it is more expensive.