How Long Does LSD Stay In Your System
LSD is often called acid and is a manmade psychedelic used to create powerful visual and auditory hallucinations. Since it’s a low-toxicity drug and doesn’t have the addictive qualities as others, it’s considered a prevalent recreational drug.
How long does LSD stay in your system? Knowing this answer is vital if you’re taking LSD regularly and feel you might have a substance abuse problem.
Jump to
- What’s Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD)?
- How Long Does LSD Stay in Your System? Consider These Influencing Factors
- How Is LSD Metabolized in the Human Body?
- What Are the Potential Short-term Effects of LSD Use?
- How Long Does It Usually Take for LSD to be Detectable in a Person’s System?
- What Are the Potential Risks of Long-term LSD Use?
- Will a Drug Test Detect LSD?
- Testing Methods
- How LSD Compares to Other Drugs
- Are There Any Treatments Available for an LSD Overdose?
- How Long Does LSD Stay in Your System?Final Thoughts
What’s Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD)?
LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) can enhance a person’s mood and emotion, changing their perception of space and time. Albert Hofmann created it in 1938. The Drug Enforcement Administration studied it for decades before banning it.
Psychiatrists used LSD to treat behavioral and psychosomatic therapies to help with anxiety and depression. Likewise, the CIA used it in the 1950s and 1960s for mind-control experiments and as a Cold War psychological weapon.
Overall, LSD is grouped with other psychedelics, such as Psylocibin, DMT, MDMA, and ketamine, but it’s considered the most potent of mind-altering drugs on the substance abuse market.
How Long Does LSD Stay in Your System? Consider These Influencing Factors
How long will LSD stay in your system? Like other drugs, it can remain in the system for several hours or up to a few days. The duration of the effects depends on many things, such as:
- Your LSD dosage
- How often do you use acid
- How much LSD do you take
- Your age
- Past/concurrent drug use
- Overall mental health and physical health
- Individual body composition
- Body fat index number
Depending on the form and size of your dose, the acid’s effect could start 30 minutes after ingestion, with the peak effects occurring in about one hour and lasting for nine to 12 hours. If you engage in frequent LSD use or choose micro-dosing, you might experience the impacts for much longer.
How long LSD stays in your system depends on the dose size and form you use.
How Is LSD Metabolized in the Human Body?
LSD gets transformed within the liver by glucuronide and hydroxylation conjugation to inactive compounds (metabolites). Roughly one percent gets removed from the urine within the first 24 hours. The LSD metabolites will stay in the body for a while, though.
What Are the Potential Short-term Effects of LSD Use?
The short-term effects of using LSD include:
- Feeling closer to other people
- Openness
- Distorted sense of time
- Feeling that what’s occurring isn’t real
- Having out-of-body experiences
- Confusion
- Possible paranoia and anxiety
- Hallucinations
- Increased body temperature
- Increased blood pressure
- Altered perception
- Euphoria
When taking LSD orally, they will often feel those effects listed above. However, if you take it through intravenous injection, you could experience other, more problematic side effects.
How Long Does It Usually Take for LSD to be Detectable in a Person’s System?
It’s hard to say how long LSD will stay in your body, but it’s also challenging to determine how long it will take to detect the drug on drug screens.
Most people feel the effects within 20 to 90 minutes. However, drug screens are often good at detecting LSD and other drugs within that time frame.
Here are a few things that affect detection times:
Body Composition
The LSD metabolites can linger in the body when you have more fat cells. However, the drug gets diluted sooner if you have more water content.
Age
Metabolism and liver function slows down with age, so younger people often metabolize the drug faster.
Liver Function
The liver is crucial for metabolizing LSD. If you’ve got a medical problem or use medication to impair liver function, LSD is harder to eliminate.
What Are the Potential Risks of Long-term LSD Use?
Those who have a mental health disorder may find that they’re more prone to drug abuse, even with LSD. They can develop a psychological dependence on it or even have a bad trip.
Traditional LSD effects will continue, but you may also have these issues:
- Built-up tolerance (you must use more to get the same effects)
- STI (you may engage in risky sexual behaviors when using LSD)
- Increased risk of developing bloodborne infections from injections
- Flashback visual hallucinations when you’re not using LSD
- Changes to your gastrointestinal system
- Various mood disorders
Will a Drug Test Detect LSD?
Detecting past drug use through drug testing is not a new concept. However, mushrooms, LSD, ecstasy, and synthetic cannabinoids aren’t detectable by standard drug tests. It’s harder to detect LSD because people generally ingest smaller amounts, which the liver breaks down quickly.
More reliable and efficient testing options are needed, and manufacturers have adapted. There are many options, such as blood, urine, and hair tests, to detect LSD use.
How long LSD stays and is detectable depends on the test type, the sample fluid, and how much LSD was ingested. However, it is possible to drug test for LSD in a person’s system.
Testing Methods
While LSD detection tests must be done with specialty methods, they’re very accurate at determining how long it was in the person’s system and detecting the drug. However, there are varying windows based on the type given.
All drug tests are different, so each sample will identify different results. Medical professionals often use various drug screenings to get a better idea.
Below, you will find the standard options for detecting drugs like LSD:
Blood Tests
Depending on how much LSD you took, it could stay in the blood for about 16 hours. While blood samples are great for quick testing, they feature a shorter detection window, are invasive, require training to administer, and are expensive.
Therefore, a blood test is often used in an emergency and isn’t the best option for drug tests people might encounter.
Urine Tests
Most drug screenings require urine samples. However, if you take LSD orally, your liver will transform it into inactive compounds, so only one percent comes out in the urine. Unless urine testing happens within four hours of use, it won’t detect LSD.
Specialized processes for urine testing can help, such as liquid-liquid extraction. They aren’t readily available but can detect the LSD up to five days after usage.
Hair Tests
The LSD metabolites could remain in the hair samples roughly 90 days after the last use. While they are easy to collect, it’s costly and can be hard to interpret the results.
Likewise, hair testing might have biases attached to them from environmental contamination and hair color. Therefore, a hair test is rarely used. However, any employer could request a hair sample test.
Saliva Tests
Most lab tests will be urine or blood testing. Saliva testing doesn’t work for LSD detection. Since it’s taken in smaller doses and metabolizes quickly, specialty screenings are necessary.
Sweat Tests
Sweat tests are often used in drug court cases, but they aren’t expected. Still, they’re highly economical and practical. The sweat patches on your skin will detect LSD usage within 14 days.
Compared to a urine test that only detects the metabolites, sweat patches also check for the parent drug, making them
How LSD Compares to Other Drugs
When comparing LSD to similar drugs, you’ll find it’s the least toxic. However, it has no medical uses, so it’s only utilized recreationally. The US government has determined it’s illegal, so LSD trips you might enjoy periodically could get you into trouble.
Are There Any Treatments Available for an LSD Overdose?
LSD doesn’t cause a physical addiction so you won’t experience any physical withdrawal symptoms. However, those with mental health issues often need professional assistance to treat their mental addiction to the drug.
Excessive use could lead to what most people refer to as withdrawal symptoms, such as:
- Paranoia
- Disorganized thinking
- Hallucinations
- Erratic moods
- Persistent psychosis
Seeking treatment is the best way to stop taking acid and prevent LSD misuse in the future. You don’t have to deal with it alone.
How Long Does LSD Stay in Your System?
Final Thoughts
LSD is an illegal drug, and specific lab tests can confirm whether you’ve used it. Therefore, it’s wise to understand why you want to stop.
How long does LSD stay in the body? This isn’t an easy question to answer because there are various factors involved, which you learned about today. If you’re tired of having to go on an acid trip all the time, please get in touch with Crestone Detox Austin – Alcohol & Drug Rehab to start your detox journey.
