In recent years, CBD (also known as cannabidiol) has become more popular than ever. It’s used internally, inhaled, and can even be found in skincare products. The 2018 Farm Bill legalized CBD nationally, so now it’s easier than ever to get access to CBD products both online and in stores. When you’re ingesting CBD daily, many people are concerned about how long the compound stays in your system, and whether or not it’s detectable on a drug test. If you’re worried about hemp products remaining detectable in your body, keep reading so you can decipher fact from fiction.
There are many different methods of CBD delivery that are equally as effective, including ingesting sublingually, smoking, or swallowing in a capsule form. No matter how you slice it, your body typically can only process about 35 percent of the CBD you ingest. The rest is unfortunately lost as waste to the body, which is why it can sometimes be more beneficial to invest in a CBD tincture with a higher concentration.
After ingesting, peak dosage time for edible products is around 90 minutes, and it can take up to that time for you to feel the full effects. If you smoke your CBD, you’ll feel the impact of the product almost immediately, and the dose will peak after just a few minutes. After the body processes the CBD, it typically exits through the digestive tract or is stored in fat cells. Within one or two days, almost all of the CBD you ingest will have exited your body through the stool.
The main issue with determining how CBD interacts with the body is the fact that there’s still significant clinical research that needs to be done surrounding cannabis. As of right now, we have general estimates of how long CBD stays in the body, and it’s determined by how often you use it. If you use CBD on a one-time basis, it will likely remain in your body for up to three days. It will quickly exit because your body doesn’t have any CBD already in it, and it’s “half-life” will, therefore, be shorter.
If you’re a moderate CBD user, it could take anywhere from three to five days for CBD to exit your body. If you use CBD daily, it could take up to ten days or perhaps even more than that for CBD to be undetectable in your body.
Will CBD Show Up On a Drug Test?
The short answer is that it could. Certain products make CBD more susceptible to trigger a positive drug test, and others make it much less likely. If a CBD product is labeled “full-spectrum” and contains even a small amount of THC, it’s much more likely to show up on a drug test than a product containing CBD isolate. This difference is because full-spectrum products retain all of cannabis’s synergistic cannabinoids and terpenes throughout the extraction process, so it’s more likely to trigger a response similar to that of recreational marijuana. In a product containing CBD isolate, all additional cannabinoids and terpenes have been removed to isolate CBD on its own. Products such as these are much less likely to trigger a positive drug test result, as they contain only CBD and no other cannabis compounds.
If you’re especially concerned about CBD remaining detectable in your body for something like a drug test, your best option is to opt for a product containing CBD isolate. Otherwise, you could take a brief break from using CBD if you want to exercise all necessary precautions. The bottom line is that CBD is removed from the body relatively quickly, even when it’s taken on a routine basis.
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