Magic mushrooms, which scientists refer to as psilocybin mushrooms, have been valued for centuries for their ability to alter consciousness and offer therapeutic help. Because more people are interested in fungi, either on hikes or as medical treatments, many individuals ask how the body deals with these fungi.
Many people ask how long it takes for magic mushrooms to clear from your body. Whether you have a drug test coming up, are setting up a session, or need to understand drug effects, figuring out the detection window is important.
Psilocybin and its metabolite, psilocin, leave the body faster than known substances such as THC or cocaine. Still, how long a drug remains in someone’s system depends on things like dose, how often they take it, how quickly they metabolize it, and the kind of drug test.
In this blog, we’ll cover how your body handles magic mushrooms, discuss how to find them, and give you tips to handle drug tests. By the time you finish, you will know what results to prepare for and how to protect yourself.
How long does magic mushrooms stay in your system?
Psilocybin found in shrooms will be broken down into psilocin by your body after consumption.
Psilocin is what develops when psilocybin is broken down in the body. Psilocin is a substance formed from the compounds in shrooms and is what activates changes in your perception and behavior.
You might have to wait 20 to 30 minutes after taking them before feeling the effect of magic mushrooms. Depending on the type you take, your tolerance, and the amount used, the effects can remain for several hours after use.
At this time, your body handles the active compounds in psilocybin shrooms. Management of these compounds mainly comes from the kidneys.
About half of the compounds in the magic shrooms leave your body after undergoing digestion in about 50 minutes. After just three hours, you may have passed 66% of the psilocybin from your body.
It is possible that the compounds will not show up in your urine after 24 hours.
It’s important to realize that these timelines are only estimates. Many different elements affect the length of time shrooms stay in your body.
The Half-Life of Magic Mushrooms
Half-life is the time needed for half of a substance to leave a person’s body. Most substances require five to six half-lives before they are completely removed from the body.
Magic mushrooms usually take an average of 50 minutes to leave your system. Usually, police can detect around two-thirds of the psilocybin in your system about three hours after you take it, through testing your urine.
It tends to be eliminated from your body faster than other drugs, compared to them. Still, factors like the dose taken and how quickly the body breaks down the compound can slow down the process.
Usually, it only takes 24 hours for shrooms to appear in urine, but they show up in blood for a shorter time. Psilocybin can be detected in human hair for up to three months.
In most cases, it takes the body about 80 minutes to reach the highest levels of psilocybin. Still, the timing can differ from one person to another.
Does a Mushroom Comes Up In a Drug Test?
That depends on the type of drug test used to screen for psilocybin mushrooms. Medical drug tests don’t test for psilocybin mushrooms. Certain specially designed tests can find out if you have taken shrooms in the recent past.
A normal five-panel drug test will find drugs such as cannabis, amphetamines, phencyclidine, opiates, and cocaine. Along with the five-panel drug test, other types are the eight and ten-panel drug tests.
It is important to add that if magic mushrooms are expected, specialized drug testing for their compounds must be performed quickly. It’s mainly because our bodies quickly get rid of these materials.
Within 24 hours of taking psychedelic mushrooms, drug tests for urine, blood, and saliva can’t detect any of the hallucinogens.
Types of magic mushroom drug tests
Drug testing refers to the process of collecting and analyzing urine, blood, hair, or saliva to find chemicals left behind in the body by various substances. Some drug tests are used on athletes to detect the presence of performance-enhancing drugs like steroids.
There are four main types of drug screenings: urine, saliva, blood, and hair drug testing.
1. Urine tests
Most types of drug testing in the US are done using urine tests. The form of the drug test is simple and inexpensive compared to others.
Testing for urine is most often carried out at a clinic or laboratory. Following the collection of the specimen, it needs to be delivered to a laboratory where it will be analyzed.
The four-panel test examines the body for cocaine, methamphetamine, opiates, and THC. Instead of four, a five-panel test detects THC, cocaine, opiates, amphetamines, and phencyclidine.
Some other panels can also be used to find barbiturates, benzodiazepines, methadone, PCP, and Quaaludes.
2. Hair follicle tests
A small sample of hair is enough to tell us if someone uses drugs. If you smoked THCA flower several months in the past, it could still be found in your hair by a hair follicle test.
It happens because certain metabolites can be found in your blood. Your scalp blood brings the metabolites that are left behind in the hair follicles.
Routine drug screening is more popular than hair screening because it’s cheaper. Nevertheless, hair follicle tests are sometimes coupled with other types of drug test methods.
Ontario criminal investigation procedures sometimes use hair drug tests to screen for opiates, cocaine, amphetamines, marijuana, barbiturates, and phencyclidine.
3. Saliva tests
Saliva tests are better in some regards than the other types of drug tests available. For starters, these tests do less harm to the patient. All that is required to collect a sample is to swab the inside of someone’s mouth.
Furthermore, getting results from saliva tests is much faster than with other types of tests. In other words, it spots trace amounts of things that can be cleared from your body quickly.
Testing a person’s saliva allows for the detection of alcohol, cocaine, cannabis, methamphetamine, opiates, and PCP.
4. Blood screening
When it comes to choosing a drug test, blood screening is chosen the least due to its disadvantages. These tests can be expensive and are also very invasive, with a quick time to identify outcomes.
At the same time, they work well at assessing drug or alcohol use in the workplace. A blood test can give results in just minutes. Additionally, it can show a more detailed picture of how much or how often drugs are used.
With this type of drug testing, it is easy to detect the substances fentanyl, marijuana, cocaine, alcohol, barbiturates, oxycodone, methadone and other drugs.
What factors affect how long shrooms stay in your system?
Certain factors can affect how long shrooms hang around in your system. Many of these factors you can’t control.
1. The time between ingestion and testing
Hallucinogens like psilocybin can be eliminated from the body quickly. Still, the time between ingesting shrooms and testing could be a factor — if the right type of test is used, of course.
The sooner a drug test is performed after taking shrooms or any other substance, the higher the chances that it can be detected.
2. Mushroom species
There are somewhere between 75 to 200 different species of psilocybin-containing mushrooms. The amount of the hallucinogen varies from shroom to shroom.
The more psilocybin in the shroom, the longer it’ll hang around in the body.
3. Dose
The more you ingest, the longer shrooms will be in your body and possibly detectable.
Whether you consume dried or fresh shrooms, scarf them down on their own, or drink them in tea, how you consume your dose affects potency and how quickly it passes through your body.
4. Diet and digestion
How much food and liquid is in your stomach when you take a dose of shrooms affects how long they hang around. The more food that’s in there when you do shrooms, the slower they’ll move through your digestive system.
When it comes to water, hydration can help speed up psilocybin excretion.
However, each body is different. No two bodies process substances on the same schedule.
Things like your body mass index (BMI), metabolism, and water content all affect how quickly things are excreted from your body.
5. Age
Your metabolism and kidneys, and liver function slow with age, which can delay the excretion of psilocybin from your body.
The older you are, the longer shrooms tend to stay in your system. This goes for other substances, too.
Final Thoughts
Understanding how long magic mushrooms stay in your system is vital for both personal awareness and navigating situations like drug testing.
While psilocybin and psilocin are typically eliminated within 24 hours, various factors can influence this timeframe. Being informed helps in making responsible decisions regarding consumption and understanding potential implications.
