Cocaine is known to offer the brief and high sense of euphoria, and lasting between 15 – 60 minutes. Just like any other illicit substances, the cocaine stays in your body for the period following the last use. Suppose you have the upcoming drug test of work scheduled, you are thinking about timeline for getting rid of the cocaine in the body. So, how long does cocaine stay in your urine generally depends on many different factors. On an average it will linger from 12 hrs to 4 days, at times much longer. There’re a lot of factors that will affect length of the time cocaine stays in your urine like:
- Amount used.
- Individual body chemistry that includes metabolism, overall health and age.
- Method of ingestion.
- Purity of substance.
- Length of frequency and time of use.
The common ways of administering cocaine are through smoking, snorting, oral ingestion or intravenous. All these methods of administration have got different “peak” times.
- Snorting – Takes over 5 min to feel effects with the peak times of 15 – 30 minutes.
- Intravenous – Takes over 1 – 5 min to feel its effects with the peak times of 5 – 10 minutes.
- Oral ingestion – Takes over 30 – 50 min to feel its effects with the peak times of 50 – 90 minutes.
- Smoking – Takes over 30 min to feel its effects with the peak times of 45 minutes.
For the recreational users, cocaine traces are found in urine for over two to four days following the last use. For the chronic users, cocaine is accumulating in your body for the time period and thus takes a little longer to eliminate. For the heavy and frequent cocaine users, the traces of this drug will take over 12days to exit your body.
Cocaine Time Duration
Cocaine is the central nervous stimulant, which is absorbed quickly after smoking with the plasma concentrations peaking over 5 min, or 30 to 40 minutes when it is taken nasally. Cocaine drug is highly metabolized by the enzymes in your blood and liver, and benzoylecgonine is one major metabolite of the cocaine found in your urine. That depends on an amount taken, and how often this is used, or metabolic variation, benzoylecgonine are detected in the urine for over 48 to 96 hours after its use.
One study found average half-lives of cocaine to be:
- Urine elimination equals to 4.1 hours.
- Saliva elimination equals to 1.2 hours
- Plasma elimination equals to 1.5 hours.
This study estimated that the cocaine’s metabolites—and breakdown products of the cocaine—have the half-life that will range from 14.6 to 52.4 hours. The study suggested that the chronic use of the cocaine leads to the buildup of cocaine drug in your body that increases an amount of the time that the cocaine and metabolites stay in the system.
