How Long Does Psilocybin Stay in Your System?

If you are Googling “How Long Does Psilocybin Stay in Your System?”, what you really want to know is “How long can psilocybin be detected in my system after I take it?” and the answer to that depends on a number of factors, including the medium of measurement, mushroom species and individual human factors like age.

If you have come this far, chances are you already know that psilocybin is a psychedelic compound found in specific varieties of mushrooms around of the world (and if you don’t, consider reading our article “What Kind Of Drug is Psilocybin“); Nearly 200 species of psilocybin mushroom species have been identified, but what you need to understand are the factors that determine how long psilocybin stays in your system.

How Long Does It Take to Feel the Effects of Psilocybin?

One of the first things you will notice is there is a divergence between the length of time you feel the effects of psilocybin and the length of time required for the substance to clear your body. After ingesting psilocybin, effects take 20 to 40 minutes to grab a hold of you and peak in the range of 90 to 120 minutes post-ingestion.

Most of psilocybin’s effects are felt during the first six hours after ingestion and the most prominent effects wear off in six to 12 hours, although clearly, people report long-term effects associated with consumption, as seen in the Frshminds article “Quit Smoking with Mushrooms? Is it even possible“.

Psilocybin Detection Times

In terms of ballpark estimates, the accepted detection times are:

• Urine: Up to 24 hours. While we can’t make this promise, we can tell you that for most standard drug tests offered by corporate entities, psilocybin is not one of the substances that is tested for.
• Blood: Less than 24 hours. This is very uncommon, mainly due to the fact that psilocybin is only detectable in the blood for about a day, so the testing would need to be done almost immediately after consumption.
• Hair: Up to 3 months. Similar to other substances.

Psilocybin is not typically tested for by employer drug screens, but when it is, testing uses high-performance liquid chromatography. Drinking water can speed up the elimination of psilocybin, but this will not be significant for people trying to avoid detection on a drug test.

Detection Time Factors

The ability to detect psilocybin is based on the body’s ability to metabolize and eliminate the compound and is metabolized more quickly by some people than others. This ability is influenced by:

Mushroom Species. The psilocybin mushroom species a person takes is one factor affecting the speed at which it is expunged from the body. There are more than 150 magic mushroom species all with different levels of psilocybin content. For more information read Frshminds’ article Understanding and Measuring Magic Mushroom Potency. It should go without saying that the larger the dosage, the longer the detection time.

Substance Half Life: The half-life of a substance is how long it takes for half of the drug dosage to be eliminated from the body and it takes five to six half-lives for a substance to be entirely eliminated. The half-life of psilocin is 50 to 60 minutes.

Human and Physiology Factors :

• Age: older people have lesser blood flow to their kidneys and liver. Having liver or kidney disease can slow down the time it takes for psilocybin to pass through the body.
• Body mass: having nothing to do with the belief that heavier people with more fat storage may better absorb psilocybin, in fact higher BMIs are associated with faster removal from the body.
• Physical activity: similarly, a higher metabolism (often the result of a higher level of physical activity) is associated with more rapid excretion.
• Water consumption: the common presumption that drinking water can flush the chemical agent out of one’s system happens to be true!
• Method of consumption: not that it occurs very often, but someone that injects their psilocybin can expect it to be removed from the body in perhaps 7 hours, much faster than if consumed orally.

Share Frshminds Content With Your Network