How Long Does Cocaine Stay In Your System 2024? What You Must Know

There are several reasons why you would be asking how long cocaine stay in your system. It could be because you or someone you know has used cocaine recently or you have got a drug test coming up.  

Learning how long cocaine can stay in your system plus the factors influencing it could help you get the help you need. 

Other psychoactive substances could last several days or weeks in your system before being cleared. People using CBD products could find that CBD can stay in their system for weeks.

Cocaine acts as a stimulant on your central nervous system (CNS). As cocaine effects begin to wear off, you might begin to experience withdrawal symptoms. These symptoms are often a direct opposite of how you felt during your high, therefore, users might feel the need to get another dose. 

Cocaine withdrawal symptoms include^[3] sleepiness, irritability, increased fatigue, anxiety, and appetite. You might also experience intense sadness. This period is delicate because this is when you might start to feel intense cravings for a fix of cocaine. If you are trying to get clean, recognizing these signs and beginning interventions could help prevent a relapse. 

Lots of psychoactive substances have health applications, for instance, more people are becoming aware of and gaining from the health benefits of cannabis. However, drug abuse could have disastrous consequences. 

Factors Affecting How Long Cocaine Stays In Your System 

Cocaine can stay in your system from a few days to a few weeks. If you are asking how long cocaine stays in your system, you might be interested to know that many factors^[4] including your metabolism and how you take the drug can affect how long cocaine stays.

How Much Drugs You Took

If you took a smaller dose of crack, it is likely to stay in your system for a shorter period. However, the larger the dose, the longer it will take for your body to clear it up and it will be around for a little longer. Taking large doses or multiple doses of cocaine could keep it in your system for up to a month.

Route of Administration 

How you take cocaine can affect how quickly you begin to feel its effects and eliminate it from your system. Injecting or smoking acts fast and is eliminated quicker while cocaine taken orally might stick around in your system a little longer. 

Frequency of Intake 

If you are a regular cocaine user, it will take longer for your system to clear it and its metabolites than if this was a one-off incident.

Taking With Alcohol 

Mixing alcohol with psychoactive drugs is a common yet dangerous practice among drug users. Alcohol binds to cocaine to form cocaethylene^[5] and slows down its elimination process.

Cocaethylene produces more toxic effects on your body than cocaine alone. It could cause liver damage, cardiovascular troubles, increased risk of stroke, impulsive behaviors, and death. 

Purity 

Contaminants present in cocaine could affect how quickly your body can process and eliminate it. 

Body Fat 

More body fat typically means a longer elimination time. That is because benzoylecgonine, a product of cocaine metabolism, could be stored in your fat tissues. Benzoylecgonine is also a cocaine metabolite tested during drug screening. 

Your Body Metabolism 

When it comes to eliminating cocaine from your body, individual differences come to play. Factors such as your age, health issues, gender, and genetics could affect how quickly cocaine and its metabolites are eliminated from your body.

How Quickly Does Cocaine Act 

Cocaine acts pretty quickly and users can begin to feel its effects in a few seconds to a couple of minutes depending on the route of administration. 

As a fast-acting psychoactive substance, cocaine gives you a high lasting only a couple of minutes to a few hours. This short-lived euphoria could cause users to binge to prolong the feeling. However, repeated cocaine use can quickly turn into an addiction and you could develop some tolerance to the substance use. 

Injecting and smoking cocaine acts pretty quickly and users can begin to feel the rush followed closely by the high as soon as five seconds after^[6]. This feeling does not last very long.

Snorting cocaine might take a little longer for the effects to kick in, usually between 3 – 5 minutes. Oral ingestion could take as long as 30 minutes to act and the effects last a little longer and could act for up to 90 minutes. 

If you find yourself or a loved one developing a cocaine addiction, you might need addiction treatment. Consider checking yourself into a treatment center or encouraging the affected party to do so. You could also call^[7] a free addiction helpline for free confidential advice. 

How Long Does Cocaine Show up in a Drug Test 

You can usually detect cocaine and its metabolites in a drug test 1 – 4 days after use. However, you could still get a positive result if you are an active drug user even after four days. 

Drug tests check for the presence of cocaine or its metabolites such as benzoylecgonine in your blood, urine, saliva, or hair. Because of cocaine’s short half-life, it typically gets cleared from your system in a few days. Benzoylecgonine, the major cocaine metabolite tested for. Also has a short half-life of about 12 hours and could be eliminated from your body in four days.  

The sample used^[8] for your drug test will affect your results as cocaine metabolites could persist in some samples longer than others. 

If you are testing blood, cocaine could be detected up to 24 hours after use while for saliva, it could be up to two days after. Cocaine detection times for urine drug tests could get up to four days. However, cocaine stays in hair the longest and you could still get a positive result up to 90 days after. 

Hair drug tests are not really popular anymore because the results can be influenced by several factors such as cocaine in the environment and hair color. 

Other factors^[9] such as your weight, height, polydrug use, and liver function could affect how long cocaine shows up in your drug test. 

Getting Rid of Cocaine in Your Body Fast 

Perhaps you have landed a job but before you can resume, you need to take a drug test. If you have spent the past week partying and you have used cocaine, you might be on the lookout for a fast way to clear it from your system.  

The internet is filled with loads of tips and tricks that claim to help you eliminate the cocaine in your system quickly for a clean drug test. However, many of these techniques are not backed by scientific research and could be dangerous. 

The best thing you can do under this circumstance is to drink lots of water and wait for your liver to break down and eliminate cocaine and its metabolites from your system. Cocaine does not stay in your system for too long unlike other psychoactive substances and you could have a clean test result some days later. 

If cocaine use is interfering with your work or you think you might have a cocaine addiction, it is a sign that you need help and would benefit from going to a treatment center for addiction treatment. They will help you explore several treatment options to help improve your substance abuse.

Conclusion

Cocaine with a short half-life of about 50 minutes typically stays in your body for about 2 – 4 days after use. If you are a heavy user or you took it with other psychoactive substances such as alcohol, it could stay in your system longer. 

A drug test can detect cocaine and its metabolites 1 – 4 days after ingestion. However, the detection period can be longer depending on the sample tested and your body’s metabolism. 
If you need help with cocaine addiction, consider getting help from a treatment center or call^[10] the national helpline for free confidential advice and addiction treatment.

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