How Long Does Cocaine Stay In Your System


So how long does cocaine stay in blood, hair, or urine? read the following article to get all the answers.

What is Cocaine?

Considered amongst one of the most addictive drug in the world, cocaine is used to attain dopaminergic euphoria. People who take cocaine get an intense sense of conversational wit, enhances pleasure, makes them go pro- social and gives them a high. The effects are due to the Cocaine’s nature of increasing the level of dopamine in the person’s brain, which in turn stimulates the reward midpoints within the organ.

Along with the temporary psychological effects, Cocaine has its negative face on the system. Agitation, restlessness, dissociation, depersonalization, psychosis and anxiety are some of the unfavorable effects. Some of the physical effects are sweating, raised up body temperature, pupil expansion and pitch in blood pressure. The mode of cocaine intake also alters the length of its effects on the body, which is whether it is inhaled through injecting, snorting or smoking.

Upon used for amusing purpose, Cocaine isn’t worth for the damaging long term neuropsychological, financial expenses nor the legal risks. Moreover, if you love your current job or looking forward to work in your dream job, you are expected to be tested for any drug as a part of recruitment process. A dash of Cocaine or any of the drug for that matter is found, either you would lose your current job or would never be selected for a new job.

How Long Does Cocaine Stay In Your System ?

Though there might not be any pleasure in stopping the use of Cocaine and witness the drug withdrawal indications, it is advisable to cease if you wish your system to be cleaned. Upon ceasing the drug usage, the drug is noted to remain in your body for 3.5 hours to 5.5 hours. Though, the primary metabolite of Cocaine, identified as Benzolyecgonine, noticeably takes longer time, i.e. Between 1 day to 2 days in order to be excluded from the system.

This is may be because when a person intakes Cocaine, 40% of the drug gets hydrolyzed to becomeBenzoylecgonine, and the other 40% of the drug is processed by the enzymes from liver to form ecgonine methyl ester. Cocaine has an half life for about 1 hour making it easier to eliminate from the body than Benzoylecgonine, that has an half life for about 6 hours. What should make you worry before getting the drug test is this Benzoylecgonine, as that’s what is being checked.

Aspects That Influence the Existence of Cocaine in the System?

Elimination of Cocaine and Benzolyecgnonine would see substantial variations based on one person to another. Many people believe that Cocaine remains in the body for the same extent of time in everyone’s system as theirs; however, the issue with the supposition is, there are noteworthy inconsistency in aspects that impact the drug disposal from the system. Some of the factors are administration modality, dosage, rate of usage, time span, individuality and purity of the Cocaine.

1. Administration Modality

The method in which the drug is inhaled influences the time Cocaine stays in the system. It is because certain modality of intake are linked with rapid concentration and a quicker high, with shorter effect duration – in compared to the ones with slower concentration and a lasting high. There are various ways of administrations which has speedy exclusion half lives than other procedures.

  • Intravenous injection – ( 50mg> )

People who insert Cocaine through intravenous injections feels a rapid high within minutes or in seconds of usage which has an effect duration from 5 minutes to 15 minutes. Because it takes least amount of time get an high and a shorter effect, the drug is easily cleared from the body of those who insert it. The abolition half life of Cocaine through intravenous injection is estimated to be within 5 minutes, this also means that in the next 30 minutes, cocaine would be out of your system.

  • Sniffing Cocaine (amount between 50 mg to 150 mg)

People who sniff Cocaine experiences a quicker high that prevails between 10 to 30 minutes. Cocaine through snorting is related with a discharging half life is about 30 minutes. So, this also means that the drug if snorted it may take about 1 hour to eliminate approximately 75% of Cocaine and if you wish to eliminate 100% of the drug intake, it may take 2.5 hours approximately. Since the dosage taken through Snorting are higher than that of Intravenous injections, the cocaine remains in the system for a longer time and is frequently detected in the system for anextended span.

  • Oral injestion

People who orally intake Cocaine may experience a gradual start of act following the intake. It may closely take one hour to completely see the effect and the symptoms may be experienced for 2 hours, though it depends on the dose inhaled and the tolerance of an individual. The eradication half life of Cocaine taken through oral injestion is estimated to be 1 hour. It means it could take nearly 5.5 hours in order to clean your system.

  • Smoking freebase Cocaine

Drug users who smoke cocaine freebase may feel the inception of beginning much speedily than done through orally. Freebase Cocaine is considered to be made by converting from its salt to base form through boiling or heating with just sodium bicarbonate. People smoking freebase cocaine know that half life elimination of cocaine is around 45 minutes only. Which means it may take 4 hours only for a body to discard Cocaine freebase from the system.

2. Dosage

The number of level of dosage of Cocaine intake influences the time it may stay in the system. Generally, those who intake a relatively high quantity of dosage may feel that Cocaine and its active metabolite Benzoylecgonine takes longer time to clear from the system. While someone who has injected a lower quantity of Cocaine dosage feels it getting cleared from the system more rapidly than expected.

3. Frequency of usage

Frequency of the Cocaine usage influences the time it takes to be eliminated from the body. Someone who intakes Cocaine for 24 times a year experiences that the drug remains in the system for a longer period of time that the person who intakes it for 3 times a year. Greater the occurrence of Cocaine usage, lower the chances of it getting eliminated from the body.

With higher frequency of Cocaine intake, neurophysiological adaptions occur which slows the drug clearance process. Recurrentlong term intakes tend to gather and preserve greater concentration of the drug in tissues of various part, example in Liver. Moreover, frequent users generate a capacity to tolerate lower dosage and incline towards injestion of larger dosage, which could extend the time of Cocaine’s stay in the body.

While intermittent users may feel that the body is efficiently processing the drug and which is cleared at rapid pace. The frequency of drug intake should be measured with that of cumulative time period of Cocaine intake to administer how long does the drug will remain in the system.

4. Time span

People who were using cocaine or consuming it for a longer period of time notice the drug’s presence in their system for a comparatively longer duration than the people who consume it only for a shorter period of time. It is stored in the fatty tissues of the organs like Liver of long term drug users. With each increasing usage, cocaine begins to accumulate in the fatty tissues of the body.

It takes relatively longer period of time to eliminate Cocaine from the system for long time users. It is because the tissue takes longer to release cocaine into the blood. This is one of the reasons, long term drug users may detect positive for several drug tests in comparison with to the short term drug users.

People who have taken Cocaine for only a shorter period of time notice that their system or body is easily processing the drug and will be cleared from the system rapidly. Because short time users are either not dependent or are not tolerant to the drug, they tend to intake small dosages at shorter time span. These people with shorter term habit don’t really possess Cocaine in the liver tissues, which means that their body restores homeostatic functions once the Cocaine is withdrawn.

5. Individuality

It is good to know that individual variations should also be consider while we talk about elimination of the drug from the body system. People with faster metabolism rates, those who are taking decontamination supplements when take small dose of the drug per poundof the bodyweight, they clear Cocaine from the body quicker. While people with a lower metabolism rate when takes large quantity of Cocaine tends to clear the drug from the system at very slow rate.

Not to forget considering aspects such as: body size (Height and weight), genetics, supplements, drugs like alcohol, exercise, dietary intake, water intake etc. – which may significantly influence the time Cocaine lives in the system. Moreover, count the above-mentionedfeatures such as individuality, purity of the drug, dosage, time span, frequency, the drug or its source and the modality at which it is taken are all may vary based on different individual which may impact the elimination of the drug.

Note: People who intake Cocaine with alcohol may extend the clearance of the drugs from the system, as alcohol and Cocaine form Cocaethylene, which could take additional time to be clear from the system.

6. Cocaine Purity

Cocaine, unlike any other drug which have different strains, is not modified for its effects. This drug is commonly sold as, freebase (crack) or Cocaine hydrochloride (powder). It may be cut with another chemicals like emphetamine to provoke a variant on the users. That said, no matter the chemical with which Cocaine is, it shouldn’t really affect the duration it stays in the body.

What specifically influences the Cocaine stay in the body is its purity. Generally it is, higher the purity, higher is the potency of its effect. Usage of highly pure cocaine will have a greater quantity of active ingredient, which will make the Cocaine’s stay in the system for a lengthier duration. Consuming the impure Cocaine or diluted with fillers means, it has less active ingredient which would be cleared from the system easily.

What would be the typical time Benzolyecgonine lives in the drug user’s system?

Aforementioned, Cocaine can live in the system for the period of about 6 hours. That means, it takes ¼ of the day to eradicate Cocaine completely from the body. If a person has taken a high dosage of alcohol orally, the abolition time may extend as compared to the person who has taken a low does through intravenous injection without any substance added.

Since every drug generally checks the Cocaine’s active metabolite Benzolyecgonine, most of the people are interested to see how long the metabolite would remain in their body. Those who have taken a smaller dosage will be clear with Benzoylecgonine within 2 days; however, recurrent drug users or people who inject large dosages may take 5 to 10 days in order to clear the metabolite.

Things may complicate when a regular drug user intakes Cocaine with alcohol, it can take upto 15 days for clearing the body from cocaethylene metabolite which is formed by the combination of two. The clearance of Benzoylecgonine could be activated a bit with prohibiting alcohol, healthy diet, exercises and no other drug. Moreover, abundantly of water may assist a big time to clear the metabolite from the system at rapid rate.

What are the various types of drug trials that are used to discover Cocaine presence in the system?

There are various types of screenings or drug tests, used to identify whether a person has taken cocaine. Some of the tests are: blood tests, hair tests, urine tests and saliva tests. Among all the above trials, the most recommended is the urine test for it’s simple and low cost.

  • Blood Tests

Blood test is one amongst the most useful and accurate test to detect the drug and its metabolite from the body. This test can distinguish the occurrence of the drug in 5 hours from the injestion. If it is assumed that the person has stopped the Cocaine usage, the blood test may detect whether you had any Cocaine intake in the previous 24 hours.

  • Hair tests

This tests are very popular if anyone wishes to detect the cocaine usage in the past months. In certain of the rare cases, hair tests can conclude whether the person had any cocaine usage within 90 days of intake. However, new users would not be trapped with hair tests, as it takes 7 days (week) for detecting cocaine from the hair sample.

  • Urine test

Some of the drug tests uses urine samples to detect the presence of drug in the body. These tests can perceive the cocaine usage within the hours of injection. Urine tests can also confirm whether a person had consumed cocaine within the last 2 days.

  • Saliva tests

Saliva tests are the fastest, these drug tests could confirm whether the person had a Cocaine intake or detecting Cocaine metabolite within just 10 mins using the saliva samples. Following that the person has stopped the usage of Cocaine, Saliva tests can confirm the presence of cocaine within 2 days of the usage. Saliva tests may not quite be as accurate as Blood tests and Urine tests, but there are some of the companies conducting the saliva tests.

One should always keep in attention that there are certain companies which would require a amalgamation of tests to conducted, saliva tests, blood tests, urine tests and – or hair trials. Administrating such combination of tests assures the employers that there aren’t any inaccuracies in the tests. In most of the cases undergoing Cocaine drug tests, the person is said to ‘positive’ for the drug, if the levels of active metabolite, Benzoylecgonine is at 300 ng/ml or more than that; 150 ng/ml ( for the GC/MS authorization ).


References

Sources & More Information:

  • wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine
  • mentalhealthdaily.com/2015/10/02/how-long-does-cocaine-stay-in-your-system
  • www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11043648
  • drug.addictionblog.org/how-long-does-cocaine-stay-in-blood-hair-or-urine/
  • www.talktofrank.com/drug/cocaine
  • Images Copyright: 123RF.com: dvarg

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One Response

  1. Sandra May 29, 2017

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