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Republished with permission from Weed News; Read the original article HERE.
Can you flush your system of THC and its metabolites by drinking lots of water or other liquids in order to pass a drug test for marijuana? Or is this myth? Nobody has directly studied it, but we can explore kidney physiology and cannabinoid pharmacology to see whether it is possible.
The controversy of drinking water to flush out THC
Today I am focusing on another common marijuana drug testing belief: that you can “flush out your system” of THC and its metabolites by drinking lots of water or other liquids (I will refer to this as hyper-hydration)
Don’t confuse this with drinking water immediately before the test to dilute the urine (which is a whole different topic). This is referring to drinking lots of water in the days and weeks leading up to the test with the hope that more THC or metabolites will be cleared out.
The hyper-hydration claim is highly controversial. About half of websites recommend it and the other half claim that drinking excess water will not help you pass a marijuana drug test.
For example, jezebel and wikihow fall into the pro-hydration camp (if you are getting your drug testing advice from wikihow, please stab yourself in the eye with a fork):
“Drink 20 to 40 ounces of sports drink per day to restore your electrolytes and keep you hydrated. Drink roughly 1 gallon (3.8 L) of water to flush your body of toxins. Drink the tea and other diuretics throughout the day as well.”
“Drink lots and lots and lots of water—gallons of it—from the time you learn about your test up until the big moment.”
On the other hand, simplecannabis.com and thcdetox.biz fall into the anti-hydration camp:
“Drinking plenty of water several days before the test is of no use. Water does not help clean the THC accumulated in the fat cells.”
“…Drinking excess water does not help your body eliminate marijuana and its metabolites from your body, nor does it speed up this process.”
I love scientific controversy! But you probably just want to know whether it is worth the trouble of pissing every 30 minutes for the next two weeks so you don’t lose your job. Fair enough, let’s get this settled.
Nobody has ever studied whether hyper-hydration affects elimination of THC or its metabolites. However, we can still use our knowledge of pharmacology and physiology to arrive at an answer for whether drinking a lot of fluids has any chance of helping you pass a drug test for marijuana.
Basics of drug excretion by the kidneys
These are your kidneys. One of their jobs is to remove toxins, including drugs, from your blood. It does this by the process of renal excretion. There are several important processes involved in renal excretion that are relevant for our discussion today:
1. Filtration: Your kidneys use a filtration system where your plasma (the aqueous part of your blood) is filtered into the renal tubule. About 20% of the plasma that goes to your kidneys is filtered.
2. Reabsorption: After a molecule is filtered into the renal tubule, it can be reabsorbed back into the blood. Any molecule that can easily cross membranes (and most drugs can) will be highly reabsorbed.
3. Secretion: Some molecules are are actively pumped from the blood into the renal tubules by transporters.
How hyper-hydration affects renal excretion
The effect of hyper-hydration on the elimination of THC and its metabolites has not been studied, but we do understand how it affects the processes of the kidney.
Many people would think that drinking a lot of water would increase filtration rate. However, one study showed that in the short term, high hydration decreases filtration rate, and another study showed that drinking extra water has no effect at all on filtration rate over the long term.
Once you understand how the kidneys control the amount of urine production, it actually makes sense that filtration wouldn’t change by drinking more fluids. The water filtered by your kidneys into the renal tubule is almost entirely reabsorbed. Your kidneys do not need to create more urine by increasing filtration, they do it simply by reabsorbing less water.
What is the impact of hyper-hydration on the reabsorption of drugs and other molecules? In several cases, a modest decrease was observed in reabsorption. Why? As water is reabsorbed from the renal tubule to the blood, the drug becomes more concentrated in the urine. This concentration gradient drives reabsorption of the molecule into the blood.
When less water is reabsorbed, there is less of a concentration gradient and also the urine flow is faster, so there is less time for the molecule to cross the membrane into the blood. The net result is that drinking extra water can reduce reabsorption, which may modestly increase renal excretion of some drugs.
There is no evidence that hyper-hydration can affect renal secretion, because it is an active process that does not depend on a concentration gradient.
Does hyper-hydration increase excretion of THC and metabolites?
Here is the basic metabolic pathway for THC (for more details, read our guide to metabolism of THC):
There are two important factors for whether hyper-hydration could possibly increase elimination of THC or any of these metabolites to a significant extent:
Is it reabsorbed?: As explained above, hyper-hydration increases renal excretion only for molecules that undergo reabsorption.
Is renal elimination a significant percent of total elimination?: Renal elimination is just one pathway for drug elimination. If other elimination pathways happen much faster than renal elimination, an increase in renal elimination will have little overall effect.
So let’s apply each of these criteria to the four THC molecules:
As you can see, 11-OH-THC and THC-COO-glucuronide do not undergo reabsorption. Therefore, there should not be any effect of hyper-hydration on them.
THC and THC-COOH do undergo reabsorption, so it is at least possible that drinking a lot of water will increase their elimination. However, to what extent? Renal excretion contributes <1% to the total elimination of each. Data from other molecules indicates that hyper-hydration increases renal excretion by about about 1/3. Even if we increase renal excretion by 10 times, renal excretion of THC and THC-COOH will still be insignificant relative to other pathways.
Myth busted?
Nobody has yet tested the effect of drinking a lot of water on flushing out THC and metabolites from your body. However, we assessed whether it is even possible using our knowledge of the physiology of the kidney and cannabinoid pharmacology. Our analysis shows that drinking extra water cannot have a major impact on the elimination of THC or its metabolites. This myth is busted, but you should still stay well hydrated!
Interested in learning more drug testing myths? See our article on the effect of exercise before a drug test.
Here is our guide to the basics urine drug testing for marijuana.
I have not smoked in 8 weeks I test myself an I’m still dirty..WTF..I see my po in 4 days..dnt know what to do
just drink water and excerise your ass off dont be a simp
I know really wtf 😒
I’m getting put on probation soon, so should I just start downing a few gallons a day, and if so what other kinda of drink should i use to help with the process. I had smoked a few hits off a roach last night and the probation office called earlier. And before I smoked the roach I was about a week and a half clean.
So for everyone saying that after drinking water their test was negative, this is due to water diluting your urine and the amount of thc molecules found inside. Normally this would cause them to throw out the test, but if you take creatine for about 2 days before 2-3teaspoons worth and take vitamins B & C to darken your urine, the exam and examiner cannot tell that it is diluted. Lil secret for yas
What are acv’s
When in doubt just use U-Pass or Quick Fix
I failed a urine drug test. Smoked the night before and I am a daily night time vaper now, and a lot on the weekends. I didn’t know they were testing. I chugged one standard size water before the test. It was inconclusive (i guess) so they sent it to the lab and i failed. I have up to 30 days to pass. Any way, after the test, drank alcohol excessively one night, sweat like a pig and and sweat at work one day from my forehead the entire time another day as I was busy moving. So after the 5th day of completely abstaining, bought a rite aid urine Marijuana test and tested positive. However, the test says if you test positive, send it in for further testing, that is free except shipping, so that tells me there are a lot of false positives. My only question is, if I drink crazy amounts of water, but then stop, are the metabolites coming back. One poster here mentioned 20 days, positive, drank a gallon, on day 21 tested again, negative, didn’t drink water the next day and tested positive. So I need to be sure to pass. Today is day 7, thinking about going to an independent lab and testing to see what’s up. I will drink tons of water and cranberry juice, but it sounds like that only masks it. My concern is what happens if i drank too much water, and they realize my sample is diluted. Wondering how long it would take to get out of my system. I am skinny so I have a fast metabolism. walked today, will drink some ACV (yuck) and cranberry juice. But again, do those methods mask it, or get the metabolites out completely. I guess nobody knows. Should I abstain from water 2-4 hours before the test even if I drank 3 gallons prior to that timeline. How about the ACV, when are you taking that and stopping that prior to the test. will they know something is not right if you are diluted and have ACV in your system, haha.
I have been using the water method for over 30 years all you need to do is start drinking large amounts of water 3 days before and it doesn’t matter what test they throw at you you’ll pass it with flying colors! I’ve even smoked up to the day before and still passed at lab’s which are the hardest to pass and I didn’t have a single problem I’ve never failed a drug screen just using water even when I was smoking four ounces a day back in the 90’s so this page is wrong 100 percent. Get your smoke on.
I have been using the water method for my entire life and it works completely fine. As long as you start chugging water three days before you will pass with flying colors. I smoke daily and get tested every two weeks twice in that week and even smoke between the days after having that much water in your system you can smoke a single time continue to drink the water and pass the second one again with flying colors. So to say it doesn’t work is a lie I’ve even smoked 12 to 13 times a day and chugged water and passed urine samples in labs the day after my last time smoking. Sorry but the information on this page is wrong ? I’m 44 year’s old and been doing this since I was 13 and never failed a drug screen and I’ve even had them done by some of the top scientist in the world it definitely works so get your smoke on !
Aye yo did the water and cran juice work???? Got interview in like 4 days I’m scared
Going to try 2-3 gallons a day with ACV and cranberry juice. Wish me luck, my interview is soon.
Well… I don’t know how much informed u are .. but I’m a daily smoker .. stop smoking for 20 days .. still shows a positive result .. on my day 21 drank one gallon of water . Test my self again it was negative . Stop drinking water for one day . And next day was positive again … sooo .. water does something ..
You guys really don’t know too much..first you lied and say excercise won’t help.. and drinking water doesn’t help.. u gave no solution other than an obvious one don’t smoke . Because this article was created to generate nothing. CBD is water soluble ((Facts) Excercise and sweat through sweat glands does relieve the body of any toxins in the body. Stop looking…
y’all rrly don’t know nun huh i was on probation and i’m a heavy daily smoker i had 4 days to flush out my system and passed my test. water and cranberry juice
im on probation so im just gon drink 3 gals of water and 3 cups of detox tea a day lmaooo
I have been drinking water for years to detox.. Usually about 2-3 gallons a day and then 1/4 cup of ACV in lemonade three days before the test and one right before. I go urinate then go for my test, I always pass.
This whole article was really fucking useless.