Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Add Upworthy to your Google News feed.
Google News Button

One of the reasons that drug tests are a colossal scam is that not all drugs stay in your system for the same amount of time. In fact, some of the least dangerous drugs such as marijuana can be detected in your urine, blood, and hair for much longer than harder drugs such as heroin and meth — meaning that schools, employers, and law enforcement agencies that drug test disproportionately penalize marijuana users.

In order to illustrate just how disparate drugs interactions can be, here's a breakdown of how long each drug stays in your system.

1. Alcohol

alcoholic_beveragesjpgautoformatandcropfacesandfitcropandqandwandixlibjs
Source: WIKIMEDIA - WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Urine: Three to five days

Blood: 10 to 12 hours

Hair: Up to 90 days

2. Amphetamines

amph_saltsjpgautoformatandcropfacesandfitcropandqandwandixlibjs
Source: WIKIMEDIA - WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Urine: One to three days

Blood: About 12 hours

Hair: Up to 90 days

3. Barbiturates

xanaxmgjpgautoformatandcropfacesandfitcropandqandwandixlibjs

Source: WIKIMEDIA - WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Urine: Two to four days

Blood: One to two days

Hair: Up to 90 days

4. Cannabis

istock
Source: istock

Urine: Seven to 30 days

Blood: About two weeks

Hair: Up to 90 days

5. Cocaine

cocaine_lines_jpgautoformatandcropfacesandfitcropandqandwandixlibjs
Source: WIKIMEDIA - WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Urine: Three to four days

Blood: One to two days

Hair: Up to 90 days

6. Heroin

istock
Source: istock

Urine: Three to four days

Blood: Up to 12 hours

Hair: Up to 90 days

7. LSD

screenshot atpmpngautoformatandcropfacesandfitcropandqandwandixlibjs
Source: WIKIMEDIA - WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Urine: One to three days

Blood: Two to three hours

Hair: Up to three days

8. MDMA

ecstasy_monogramjpgautoformatandcropfacesandfitcropandqandwandixlibjs
Source: WIKIMEDIA - WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Urine: Three to four days

Blood: One to two days

Hair: Up to 90 days

9. Methamphetamine

px crystal_methjpgautoformatandcropfacesandfitcropandqandwandixlibjs
Source: WIKIMEDIA - WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Urine: Three to six days

Blood: 24 to 36 hours

Hair: Up to 90 days

10. Morphine

morphine_vialjpgautoformatandcropfacesandfitcropandqandwandixlibjs
Source: WIKIMEDIA - WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Urine: Two to three days

Blood: Six to eight hours

Hair: Up to 90 days

With the exception of benzodiazepines (e.g. Valium), marijuana has the longest detectability. If you smoke a joint, it can be traced in your urine for seven to 30 days, depending upon your frequency of use and body type. That contrasts starkly with the detectability of more dangerous and addictive drugs, including heroin, meth, and cocaine.

To demonstrate why this contrast matters, consider the fatal overdose rate.

More than 15,000 people died from drug overdoses involving heroin in 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported; heroin can only be detected in urine for three to four days. More than 16,000 people died from prescription painkiller overdose in 2017; potent painkillers such as morphine have a two to three-day lifespan in urine.

Nobody has ever died from a marijuana overdose — but it can stay in your system longer than both of those drugs combined.

This article originally appeared last year.

drugshealthscience

The Latest

Eric Clapton
Past Events

Unearthed Eric Clapton interview reveals devastating details that inspired "Tears in Heaven"

The receptionist at a hotel.
Past Events

Entitled hotel guest refuses to accept reality, so employee takes her on a wild ride

Gay teen asks friend's mom permission to attend girls-only sleepover. She handled it beautifully.
Past Events

Gay teen asks friend's mom permission to attend girls-only sleepover. She handled it beautifully.

thinking, brain trick, regulate emotions
Past Events

Neuroscientist shares simple brain trick successful people use to tackle hard things 'almost effortlessly'

More For You

Scientists extracted a Pink Floyd song from brainwaves and it’s haunting
Representative photo by Canva

Scientists extracted a Pink Floyd song from brainwaves and it’s haunting

The concept of reading thoughts once belonged to the realm of science fiction, but breakthroughs in neural decoding are turning it into reality. This technology, which interprets brain activity into meaningful signals, has already allowed scientists to reconstruct words and images from brainwaves. Now, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have taken it a step further. In August 2023, they managed to recreate a Pink Floyd song purely from brain activity, a discovery published in PLOS Biology that offers new insight into how the brain processes music.

A team led by Robert Knight and Ludovic Bellier conducted the study on 29 epilepsy patients at Albany Medical Center in New York who were undergoing brain surgery. While the patients were in the operating room, they listened to "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1" by Pink Floyd. Electrodes placed directly on their brains recorded the electrical signals produced as they processed the song. Using artificial intelligence, Bellier later reconstructed the track based entirely on these neural recordings. The final result was hauntingly distorted yet unmistakably recognizable. "It sounds a bit like they’re speaking underwater, but it’s our first shot at this," Knight told The Guardian.

Keep ReadingShow less
5 body language habits that make you instantly more charming

Make a killer first impression by shifting your body language.

Source: Photo by fauxels/Pexels

5 body language habits that make you instantly more charming

The sayings, “Actions speak louder than words,” and “It’s not what you say, but how you say it,” are popular adages for good reason. Our silent body language speaks volumes, but we may not always be aware of what we’re saying with it. The way we hold ourselves, our gestures, and even how we make eye contact can make a huge difference in how people perceive us.

And that perception makes a difference. People form a first impression within seconds, and some research shows that traits like trustworthiness start to be judged within a tenth of a second of meeting someone.

Keep ReadingShow less
climate change, reforestation, drone technology, Myanmar, seed missiles, mangrove trees, Biocarbon Engineering

Drones are firing seed pods to plant forests — and it’s actually working

Technology is the single greatest contributor to climate change but it may also soon be used to offset the damage we’ve done to our planet since the Industrial Age began. In September 2018, a project in Myanmar used drones to fire “seed missiles” into remote areas of the country where trees were not growing. Less than a year later, thousands of those seed missiles have sprouted into 20-inch mangrove saplings that could literally be a case study in how technology can be used to innovate our way out of the climate change crisis.

“We now have a case confirmed of what species we can plant and in what conditions,” Irina Fedorenko, co-founder of Biocarbon Engineering, told Fast Company. “We are now ready to scale up our planting and replicate this success.”

Keep ReadingShow less
He was trapped in a 20-foot pit. Then he pulled off the ultimate escape.

A gravity-defying stunt

Photo credit: Zhang Yije

He was trapped in a 20-foot pit. Then he pulled off the ultimate escape.

A viral video from China has people questioning the laws of gravity—and then realizing it's all physics, skill, and a healthy dose of discipline. Posted on Xiaohongshu (also known as Rednote), the video shows a man inside a vividly colored pit, its vertical walls towering about 20 feet above him. There's seemingly no way out—until he starts running.

Don't try this at home.roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms

Keep ReadingShow less
What happens when you stop bathing

What happens when you stop bathing

No soap, no water, no nothing. If you don't shower regularly, that's your prerogative (though there's no guarantees your friends and family won't have something to say).

But beyond personal preference, there's actually a science behind what happens to your body when you don't routinely bathe.

This popular video delves into some of the physical effects that washing too little (or too often) has on your body.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2025