If you consume shrooms for their psilocybin effects and wonder if mushrooms show up on drug tests, the article will provide insight.
Mushrooms, also popular as magic mushrooms and shrooms, are known for their psychoactive compounds like psilocybin and psilocin (1). They produce hallucinogenic effects, leading you to an altered state of consciousness, illusions, and changed mood, perception, and cognition (2).
While many standard drug tests are not able to detect the presence of mushrooms, a few specific ones can detect hallucinogens.
In this article, we will learn about drug tests that can detect mushrooms and how long they stay in the system to show up on these tests. Additionally, we’ll find ways to flush these compounds faster.
What Determines A Test To Show Mushrooms?
Usually, it depends on how long the body takes time to process the mushrooms and their compounds that cause hallucinogenic effects. The drug tests that can show mushrooms are required to be taken within a specific time period to find their traces in the body.
Which Drug Tests Show Mushrooms?
Often, the commonly used drug tests are neither done nor designed to check the presence of mushrooms. In fact, they are made to find if the person has consumed abused prescription medications and drugs. These include amphetamines, phencyclidine, cocaine, opiates, and marijuana.
These drug tests are usually employed for screening job applicants, investigating accidents, as a part of court cases, etc. While standard panel tests do not detect mushrooms, there are some specialized tests that can provide the information.
These hallucinogen tests include markers for LSD, mushrooms, mescaline, and peyote. Some of the common tests for drugs include the following-
1. Urine Analysis
It is one of the most common drug tests and screens for five categories of drugs (3). Unfortunately, mushrooms are not included in its categories. However, it can detect the presence of cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines, opiates, and phencyclidine. It is also called the five-panel test.
Additionally, 8, 10, and 12-panel tests are also done that may detect barbituates, alcohol, benzodiazepines, MDMA, propoxyphene, methadone, and methaqualone.
2. Hair Follicle Drug Tests
While urine analysis can detect the presence of drugs only when performed under a specified time period, hair follicle drug tests can detect hallucinogens over a more extended time, which is around 90 days (4).
This test can detect the presence of mushrooms. However, due to high cost, hair follicle drug tests are often not recommended for usual testing.
Besides these two popular drug tests, blood tests and saliva tests are also performed to test for hallucinogens. However, none of them are able to shop for shrooms.
How Long Do Mushrooms Stay In The System?
As a person consumes products that release psychoactive compounds, the body breaks them into easily digestible forms, psilocybin and psilocin (5). Once released in the bloodstream, they cause hallucinogenic effects, altering perception and behavior.
It takes around 15 to 20 minutes for these effects to start showing up. However, how long they’ll last will depend upon dosage and the way your body is processing it.
Usually, the body starts processing these compounds fast. Once absorbed into the blood, the kidneys excrete them, and they leave the body in the urine.
The half-life of psilocin (when it is half released by the body) is 50 minutes. It takes around 3 hours for 66% of these compounds to get excreted from the body. After 24 hours, urine tests cannot detect their presence.
A few things that decide how long psilocybin and psilocin will last in the body are-
- Dosage you have taken
- Potency of shrooms
- Type of mushrooms consumed
- Tolerance level of the body
- How the product was prepared
- Metabolism
- Kidney malfunction
- Foods or drinks taken with mushrooms
How Do You Get Rid Of Psilocybin From The Body Fast?
As already mentioned, psilocybin and psilocin take around 24 hours to leave the body through urine.
If you have taken a small dose, the body may process everything quickly as it won’t require too much time to break the compounds into easily digestible forms.
Additionally, you can hasten the process by drinking plenty of water so that a fresh supply of urine keeps flowing through different organs, allowing the compounds to leave the body fast.
However, it needs more research to find a conclusive statement about getting rid of hallucinogenic compounds faster from the body.
Conclusion
If you are skeptical if mushrooms show up on drug tests, stay relaxed as most of the commonly used drug tests- 5, 8, 10, and 12 panels are not able to detect it. These are able to detect only the presence of commonly used drugs and abused medications, including marijuana.
However, there are a few specialized hallucinogen tests that are used to detect the presence of mushrooms.
At the same time, since the body releases the psychoactive compound of mushrooms quickly (within 24 hours), it is highly unlikely for it to show up on drug tests.
References
- National Library Of Medicine – Indole Alkaloids from Psychoactive Mushrooms
- National Library Of Medicine – The Therapeutic Potential of Psilocybin
- National Library Of Medicine – A Practical Guide to Urine Drug Monitoring
- National Library Of Medicine – Hair Drug Testing Results and Self
- National Library Of Medicine – Psychedelic effects of psilocybin correlate with serotonin 2A receptor occupancy and plasma psilocin levels
