If you’re on the hunt for a job—or you’re an unlucky reporter at an online-only newspaper—and you’re worried about passing a drug test, here’s some advice* from a reliable slogtipper who (understandably) asked to remain anonymous:
How to Pass That Drug Test
Quit smoking/eating weed now, just to give yourself a head start.
Depending on your metabolism and how much you smoke, it will take 3-30 days for THC to leave the body (it’s stored in your fat cells). There’s no way to flush it faster, but you can easily dilute your urine through hydration enough that it contains undetectable amounts of THC. Here’s how:
4-5 days before your test: Start taking creatine powder in fruit juice per the instructions on the creatine bottle. You can buy creatineit at Madison Market or vitamin/supplement stores. Take it twice a day every day. This will make sure your urine has enough specific gravity that they can’t tell you’ve diluted it.
On test day: 3 hours before your test, take a mega-potency B vitamin and drink two 8-ounce glasses of water. Then drink another 8 ounces every 15 minutes for the next hour, for a total of six glasses of water, or 48 ounces. If you hate water, any liquid will do. Don’t forget to take your creatine today, too.
In about 1-2 hours, depending on your system, you should be peeing every 15-20 minutes. Hopefully the vitamins are making it bright and stinky. Your pee might be light yellow, but don’t sweat that; when you’re hydrated, your pee is almost clear and they won’t bat an eye.
1 hour prior to the test, take 4 Rolaids or 4 Tums. Continue to drink 3-4 ounces of water every 20-30 minutes until your test.
Put on some nice clothes and go pee in the cup. Try to be cool. You will pass even if you’ve smoked this week. If somehow you fail, demand a retest. And don’t smoke again until you have your results! (This can take 1-2 weeks).
According to our resident mad scientist Jonathan Golob, the creatine-and-peeing-all-day method could work, and adds that you should also lay off the fatty foods:
I could add (beyond peeing it out, which seems about right) is to change when/if you eat fatty meals.
In the days leading up to the test, when you’re trying to pee it out, eat as little fat as possible. Your fat cells will start burning off their reserves, releasing THC into your blood for you to pee out.
A day or two before the test, you should *start* eating fatty foods. All of that extra fat in your blood will be picked up by your fat cells—taking the THC with it and preventing the THC from ending up in your pee.
Combine this trick to make less free THC, with…making more pee and it seems like you’d have a decent shot of ending up below the threshold.
Now you know.
Disclaimer: if you try this and get busted, it’s not our fault.
don’t work out! again releasing THC
Is it that hard to smuggle in clean urine and dispense it from a fake dick? Even if they watch you pee they don’t hold your dick do they? Beating the test using your own bladder seems highly unlikely to work.
@2, if you try this, be sure the urine is close to core body temp. Many tests include a measure of the temp of the sample–cold pee means a fail.
I think it could work, not that it should.
What it makes me want to do is test these and other methods….
I have the perfect hiding place for container that just happens to be at “core body temp.”
I amshocked that a reputable newspaper such as The Stranger would encourage its readers to break the law.
Kristofferson on a crutch – why in the hell can’t we just legalize the pot? It could be grown domestically and taxed – which would be a kick in the balls to drug cartels, and a sure-fire way to attack gov’t budget deficits.
Isn’t it a farse that online drug testing is going to be mandatory to appease the bank and enforcement policies of thoughts runnning away with liability lawyers and HUGE amounts of cash when in the old days they built it themselves
” the old fashioned way “?
This is why in the military somebody just walks up to you and says, “Guess what! Go pee in a cup right now.”
Or, ask the fine folks at the head shop under Pike Place market for advice. They will steer you in the right place, trust me. Their solutions have worked for me several times.
Legalizing pot doesn’t mean no more drug tests. There are still going to be lots of jobs where proving you’re not on something is still going to be important, to some people at least. Unfortunately for pot smokers, unlike booze, it sticks around in testable quantities long after your buzz has evaporated. Which means that drinkers are provably sober enough to drive a bus, etc., the next morning, while dopers are not.
And even in a legal-pot world, not everybody’s going to be working for Rick Steves.
I’m curious: do ultra-fit athletes, and workout geeks, who have insanely low body fat test positive longer or shorter times than fat folks? I’m thinking race-ready cyclists, whose kidneys are visible bulges on their backs. Less fat = less THC storage? Or less fat = less fat to hide it in?
Also, what would be the effect of liposuction on a piss test?
Yes indeed, the war on drugs is just about won!
As you get older it takes longer for the THC to leave your system. I thought I was good at about 6 weeks out from puffing twice in one night and not at all for weeks before that but my test came out positive. And by older I mean 36!
I had to retake a test once because I drank too much water. I wasn’t even smoking at that time, I just always drink a lot of water. Evidently the testers/tests are on to diluting your pee, beware…
In my experience this method has worked twice, just add in the advice “use the middle of your stream.” That is, not when you first start to pee or are about to finish, they only need a small amount and the sediment is largely in the beginning/end (according to my former dealer). That’s not science – it’s pothead logic. But it worked for me.
I’ve also only ever been drug tested for menial jobs like cashiering at Target where knowing I could go home afterward and smoke pot helped me get through a shift. I think they just wanted to make sure I wasn’t on heroin.
Fnarf:
You’ve just made a whole bunch of pharmacologists squeal with delight.
Essentially, what you’re asking is will the biological half life of THC decrease if you decrease the volume of distribution, assuming the clearance rate is unchanged.
The formula for the half-life is:
t1/2 = Ln(2) * Vd / CL
Where t1/2 is the half-life, Vd is the volume of distribution and CL is the clearance rate.
The answer is yes. People will less fat will tend to clear THC more quickly. (And, interestingly, get high more quickly when starting to smoke.)
Inhaled anesthetics (isoflorane, halothane and the ilk) have similar pharmokinetics to THC, as they are also lipid-soluble. Fatty people cause grief for anesthesiologists, as it takes them much longer to build up or bleed off these drugs….
change ‘People will’ to “People with’, and it might make more sense…
i’m anticipating a test, but have know about for a while, i should be about 5 wks out by test time. but i am fat and used to smoke a bunch so…
i just discovered walgreens sells at home tests. anyone know if these are as reliable as the lab? (i.e if i pass at home, am i good to go at the lab?)
The problem with the drug testing going on today is the cheapness of the tests that they give you. Even if you false positive on something, they sent off your urine to get GC/MS’d, where they can find anything-
Easy way to beat the test. get one of those belts that has a heater and synthetic urine. It’s the same stuff they use to baseline the tests with. 40 bucks and it comes with a heat pack and thermometer.
40 bucks and no concern with metabolic rates. Unless that’s your thing coughcough golob cough.
Jonathan, presumably they get high faster because the THC doesn’t have anywhere to go once saturation is achieved, so it stays in the bloodstream and thence the brain?
so my next question is, are any performance-enhancing drugs fat-soluble, and if so, does that make them harder to detect in 1% body fat cyclists?
Probably not, since cycling enhancers aren’t really drugs in the conventional sense; they’re all about oxygen transfer rates in the blood cells or some such.
I have some other tricks that have been known to make pharmacologists squeal with delight. Or disgust; I’ve never really been able to tell the difference. Ladies only; please form an orderly line to your left.
@19, more than a few places are demanding close visual inspection of the sample-giving, which is enough to make even the fake penis trick impossible.
Eventually I expect people in certain kinds of jobs to be forced to wear implantable sensors that deliver constant real-time blood state information.
Ultimately, all witch hunts are about the humiliation and the prying, not the supposed offenses that supposedly require them. Looking for pot in your piss isn’t hugely different than looking for perverts in your bedroom.
Fnarf:
I can’t think of any lipid-soluble drug that would be performance enhancing, aside from perhaps thyoid hormone. An excess of T3/T4 would increase metabolism, but also cause diarrhea. Not sure how helpful that would be to a cyclist.
You can always count on Manswers for an easy and creative solution.
… so is synthetic thyroid hormone (levoxyl, ect) fat soluble?? and so does weight gain or loss affect the effectiveness of taking it?
Last drug test I took, they watched, sorta. Closely enough, at least, that fumbling with an apparatus I wasn’t born with would have got their attention.
But really, being out of work might be a good time to ease up on smoking weed.
@21,
That’s where I would say something to the effect of:
“FUCK YOU WEIRDO, YOU ARE NOT GOING TO CHECK OUT MY JUNK! I WILL SUE!” This is for a pre-employment screen only.
When I was in the army, they stared right at mr. wiggly and the boys for the entire time. So I guess it depends on the job.
This method has worked at least once for me and my ‘just say no’ control freak xtian boss will never know the difference.
Seems to me I’m far more worried about train engineers texting their young fans and “letting them drive the train” … but being high while working is usually not a good idea.
oh and @16 for the win – fat solubility is the big correlation
@26. I think I own that movie.
I’ve worked places that gave pee tests, and quite a few of them now test for abnormally high creatine levels. If your creatine is crazy high, they may ask you to come in again and test, and continue to do so until your creatine is within average levels.
@22, lots of cyclists have diarrhea. If you’re really lucky, during the Tour de France some camera operator will accidentally show you some poor fellow run the stuff down his leg without even getting off his bike.
Wisepunk, they stared at your junk the entire time you were in the army? Are you SURE that was the army?
Didn’t Tom Sizemore get busted for using some sort of apparatus during a drug test? I don’t think they even saw the thing, they just heard something tap against the side of the sample cup.
@33:
The Wizinator, which the feds put out of business.
Fnarf, THC hanging around in your fat cells doesn’t mean you’re not “sober”. I’d rather have a bus driver that took a few bong rips the previous night than a hungover bus driver wearing sunglasses on an overcast day in March.
Drug tests are understandable when there is a safety issue. They really should randomly test your bloodstream levels when you clock in and not test whatever you did last night/week, but still understandable. If you have a desk job or you’re, say, a reporter, maybe find an employer that doesn’t treat you like a 5 year old? My salary is commensurate with my job performance. End of story.
While I fully agree with #7, I can’t help but ask…dude, if you’re unemployed and seriously looking for work, would it kill you to quit smoking until you’re employed again?
What’s the deal with opiates?
The dilution method should work for everything they’re testing for. Opiates don’t stay in your system nearly as long as THC:
Detection Period in Urine
1-2 days (opium)
1-4 days (heroin)
3-4 days (morphine)
4-24 hrs (meperidine)
From the very useful site The Vaults of Erowid (http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/opiates/…)
ALSO IMPORTANT: collect piss from mid-stream (the start and the end of your stream have the most particulates)
This seriously works like a charm. And don’t waste your money on “fast flush” or “pee clear” or “golden seal” teas… they work exactly the same way (lots of liquid) and are a big waste of money.
@35: Fnarf wrote “provably sober”. You can prove that you are no longer under the influence of alcohol by showing that it is no longer in your system. THC stays in your system long after its effect is gone. Thus, “the next morning” you can prove that you are not under the influence of alcohol consumed the previous day, but the same is not true of THC.
This stuff is mostly true, I know from experience. Some personal notes:
The creatin and b-vitamins are just to make your piss yellow: If you spend your morning chugging Gatorade/regular soda/energy drinks/water/juice you’ll do just as well. Really the more you can flush through your system in the several hours leading up, the better. As long as you’re pissing very regularly, and it’s piss colored, you’ll be fine.
As for metabolic tricks, fat cells store sugar, not fat. You can try starting this trick 3-4 days before your test if you’re a super-heavy smoker. Alternate cycles of depriving yourself of sugars and starches, binge occasionally, starve again, etc. When you get good and hungry (a slight headache is a sign), then you know you’ve dropped your blood sugar levels and the fat will start slowly releasing their stores. Afterward when you then consume sugar your body won’t just burn it or piss it out, it will actively store some away, especially since it now thinks food is scarce. If you wanted a surefire way to get fat, this is it, but it’s also a good way to help your fat stop releasing THC metabolites into your blood, and therefore into your piss. Wake up the morning of your test hungry as hell, feed yourself starches, chug lots of sugary beverages, and the lab-rats will have a real tough time finding anything to report.
Standard corporate-bs piss tests have a threshold for detecting THC. It’s not that they’re looking for *any*, they’re just looking for *enough*. You can get test strips at many headshops and I suggest trying a “test run” the day before to confirm your technique will work.
Creatine is not to make your piss yellow, but Vitamin B is. The creatine is to ensure that the specific gravity of your urine is in the correct range. When you dilute your urine by drinking lots of water, you change the density of the sample significantly enough for the testers to realize that you’re trying to beat it. Creatine is largely responsible for this effect, so taking creatine supplements help to make your diluted sample more “authentic.”
idk, ive read every comment up until mine.. and there are lots of interesting things. What I am going to try and do is try a bit of it all. I do think that comment #42 by home user seems to be one of the more physiologic competant ways to pass a test.. I have a test in approx 2 weeks or so… and Im in NURSING SCHOOL. IDK I enjoy my recreational activity outside of class, work, and study… But unfortunatly I am also over weight. But I havent done ANYTHING in a week now, and Im taking some STAT daily pretox cleansers… hopefully with everyones advice i will PASS! but Im am going to RiteAid to buy a few home test kits to see just what will do the trick. Does anyone else have anymore advice??
THC satys in your system for approximately 28 days, so it is pretty hard to get around that one. Opiates 2-3 days amphetamine 7-14 days.
stressedbytests, let me know if you pass or not. I’m in the same boat as you. I’m a fellow Nursing student too, and am about to go look for a job at a hospital in the next few weeks and need to know how you faired.
Thanks
Hey I’m 6’4 195 pounds and I smoked on Saturday and took a piss test on Monday. I stopped smoking for almost a week b4 that Saturday. I’m only 17 years old and I’m just gonna tell y’all what worked for me I’m not trying to say this is the foolproof method or nothing lol I drank lots of that cheap flavored soda water from walmart and drank lots of monssters energy drinks. And I passed.
I can 100% attest that this method does work. I had to take a pre-employment drug test for a health care job. That was my motivation to stop smoking and I’m glad I did but I only had 2 weeks clean to pass. I followed these instructions to the letter and my urine was clean, normal pH, and yellow due to the B-2 vitamins.