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Drug Testing: Don't Believe the Hype
Cannabis
Citation:   Mateo. "Drug Testing: Don't Believe the Hype: An Experience with Cannabis (exp74101)". Erowid.org. May 15, 2019. erowid.org/exp/74101

 
DOSE:
  repeated smoked Cannabis (daily)
BODY WEIGHT: 130 lb
Over three months of summer after I graduated college, I was a habitual weed user. I would wake-and-bake four out of seven days a week and typically smoked four or five times throughout the day. This had pretty much been my standard operating procedure through the past five or six years of my life, dating back to high school.

After I finally got an interview in my field, I was simultaneously thrilled and wracked with fear over the possibility of losing the chance at my job before it even started. I wasn't sure that they would test for drugs because it's not uncommon to find smokers in my field
I wasn't sure that they would test for drugs because it's not uncommon to find smokers in my field
, so even after I was offered a position at the interview, I continued smoking on a fairly regular basis. I later called one of my future coworkers to ask about drug-testing, which was an interesting conversation, and was informed that I would indeed be submitted to a test during my first week on the job.

I basically lost my shit after that. The job was out of my home state, so I had a couple weeks before I would start but I had to sign an apartment lease and move down there before I was certain I would even be able to get the job. My biggest fear was moving down there, committing to a lease, and then having to tell everyone I knew that I didn't actually get the job because I was a pothead.

Over the next couple weeks I worked out a lot, ate plenty of apples and grapes, ate some high-fat foods so my body wouldn't think it was starving and bought a home test kit. Four days before I started on the job, I failed the home test after 19 days of not smoking. I was fairly distraught, having read around the internet that it could be up to 11 weeks for green to clear your system if you had used habitually for years.

I had already moved down to the city where I would work and was preparing to come up with excuses for why I should be able to retest when I failed. I continued my workout regimen over the next few days, hoping I was close to passing or that I had done the home-test wrong.

Without prior notice from the company, I was tested on my second day on the job, 24 days after my last smoke, and I passed.
I was tested on my second day on the job, 24 days after my last smoke, and I passed.
That morning I had drank about 4 glasses of water and pissed three times before the test-piss, which was still fairly yellow in color.

I know weed detection is highly subjective and is different for everyone on an individual basis, but when I was searching online before being tested I really appreciated reading someone else's story for what they did to get clean that didn't involve buying hundreds of dollars in detox kits or sneaking in another person's clean urine for their test. I am a fairly skinny guy, about 5'7' and 130 lbs., but I never went overboard on drinking water or anything like that and I managed to get clean.

I still think testing for weed is absurd. It's the least harmful drug a person can use, including alcohol, and the detection time in one's system is longer than anything else. As I said, I had been a regular smoker since high school, and I managed to make it through college and get a pretty good job in my field right after graduation as a pothead.

Good luck to everyone out there facing a similar situation. Don't stress yourself over websites that say weed can be detected for months and months after use, I think that those cases are the exception and not the rule.

Exp Year: 2008ExpID: 74101
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: May 15, 2019Views: 1,071
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Cannabis (1), Drug Testing (59) : Retrospective / Summary (11), Workplace (51)

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