XII. Drug Testing
A. What is a drug test?
The standard drug test is the NIDA-5 (National Institute on Drug Abuse) test where your
urine is analyzed for the presence of amphetamines, cocaine, morphine/heroin, PCP and THC (marijuana). There are also blood and hair drug tests, but they are more complicated and expensive (and therefore more rare) than urine testing, so these questions assume that someone is taking the NIDA-5 urine test.
B. Will ecstasy show up on a NIDA-5 urine test?
MDMA (ecstasy) is not one of the substances specifically targeted by the NIDA-5 test, but
you can fail a drug test because of your MDMA use. First, MDMA is close enough in chemical structure to cause you to test positive for having used amphetamines. Second, there can also be other drugs (see section VIII) in a pill besides MDMA or MDA. Your ecstasy use can definitely cause you to fail a drug test because of these two reasons.
C. How long does ecstasy stay in your system?
It depends on a lot of factors, but on average
the half-life of MDMA inside a human body is 8-9 hours. That means within 72 hours, less than 1% of MDMA will be left in your system. Everyone's body is different and there will be some variation.
D. How long should I abstain from ecstasy before taking a drug test?
To be on the safe side,
the best advice is to allow at least a week between your MDMA use and taking a drug test. A detectable amount of amphetamines would still be present in your urine for 24-72 hours after a
single MDMA use or 72-120 hours after
heavy MDMA use. As mentioned earlier, other contaminants might be present in an ecstasy pill.
Cocaine is detectable in urine for 48-72 hours after use, while
amphetamines are detectable for 48-96 hours and
methamphetamines are detectable for 48-96 hours.
Ketamine might be detectable in urine after 48-96 hours using specialized tests. DXM is not illegal.
2C-B and research chemicals are unlikely to cause a positive result, but if so they would be on the same time scale as amphetamines. Combining all the different possibilities, waiting a minimum of five days would be reasonable and waiting at least seven days would be very wise.
E. Where can I get other information?
This discussion has focused on providing quick answers about MDMA and drug testing, so those wanting to know more or having questions about other drugs should consult
Erowid's Drug Testing Vault or
Exx_head's FAQ for more information. Also see the "How To Pass" section at
Erowid's Drug Testing Vault for information about purifying your system.
