In this article, you find out if drinking pickle juice could help you pass your upcoming drug test. It’s full of information about how to use it, the risks involved, and whether people have had success. Continue reading to determine if it might help you!
Will Pickle Juice Help Me Pass a Drug Test?
Pickle juice is acidic because of the vinegar. It gives you an idea that if you drink it, you could cheat your drug test. The main component of pickle juice is acetic acid, which is designed to neutralize THC metabolites. Laboratory analysis cannot pick them up and give you a fail on the test.
Yes, it could help, but it doesn’t work in a single day.
Has Anyone Had Success Using Pickle Juice?
Most people claim that pickle juice is a great way to fail a drug test. However, one woman said that about 20 years ago, the vinegar from the juice did the trick for her. Still, drug tests, especially laboratory ones, are much more sophisticated now than in the past, so the trick no longer works.
Several years ago, there weren’t that many technological advancements in drug tests. Therefore, home remedies could be used to pass the test. However, the process is much more complicated today.
There are a handful of people who claim it works, but it doesn’t always give you the results you want.
Why It Works
For every success story of using pickle juice, there’s a chance that the urine dilution was caused by frequent urination from drinking more water. Since there’s so much sodium in pickle juice, it acts like a diuretic.
That means you become thirstier and must drink more fluid to counteract the effect. You’re drinking more (preferably water), which means urinating often. As you urinate, you’re pushing the drugs out of your system.
Each successful person had to drink a lot of pickle juice, and they urinated frequently enough over a period of days (or sometimes weeks) to dilute the urine sufficiently to erase the trace amounts of the drugs.
The Factors to Consider
This means you must stop using whatever drugs you prefer about a week before your scheduled drug test. You’ve also got to drink a few jars of pickle juice throughout the detox week to make any difference.
Some people enjoy drinking the leftover brine from pickles, so it’s not a huge deal. However, there could be risks involved, too, which are discussed below.
Pickle Juice in the Sample
Other people say that it’s better to add the pickle juice to the urine sample instead of drinking it. This method can help you pass the drug test, but it’s often hard to do.
Healthy urine is often alkaline, but the pickle brine is acidic. If you add a small amount of the juice, it changes your urine sample’s pH levels to show more acidity, slowing down its antigen-antibody reaction. Standard urine tests for drug metabolite detection uses that reaction.
You’re slowing down the antigen-antibody reaction, which produces the false-negative result you want. However, laboratories also look for an abnormal pH level when testing urine, making the method ineffective. If they notice this, they often give a “could not be tested” result.
It’s often hard to smuggle something into the bathroom at the laboratory. You need a container to hold the pickle juice and a way to pour a few drops in. Therefore, this option isn’t effective.
Company Issues
Plus, the company you’re testing for is likely to call you and ask for another test sample. You’ve put off getting tested, which could help you pass the second time.
However, the company also has the right to turn you down for the job, hiring someone whose urine tested negative with no issues or concerns.
Only for Marijuana
It’s also important to remember that people using pickle juice to pass their drug tests had used THC (marijuana). They hadn’t been using “hard” drugs, and there’s no information about how effective pickle juice might be on other substances.
If you’ve taken something else, you’re risking your job by trying the pickle juice method. While it might work, THC works differently in the body than other substances.
Prisons and Pickle Juice
Who else has used pickle juice to pass their drug tests? People in prison have had varying degrees of success. They don’t have access to detox kits you might find at the store. Even if they had someone to send them one, it’s not likely to reach them.
However, most prison kitchens have pickles (and the subsequent juice). Those who choose to use while inside get an edge for passing their drug test by drinking the brine. However, it’s unknown if the prisoners were successful or not.
Are There Any Risks in Using Pickle Juice?
Pickle juice is safe to drink for the most part. However, it carries health risks if you consume too much of it. The possible side effects for daily use are shown below:
- High blood pressure – If you drink excessive amounts of the salty brine, it could lead to water retention, which could increase your blood pressure. Depending on how much you consume, it could be enough that you could have a stroke or heart attack.
- Indigestion – Drinking too much pickle juice often leads to stomach pain, heartburn, or even flatulence. Your body can’t process all the vinegar and salt, making you uncomfortable.
- Hypernatremia – This issue indicates a higher level of sodium in your blood. That could cause muscle spasms and twitching throughout the day. Though you can stop it by not drinking as much pickle juice, it’s quite uncomfortable while it’s happening.
- Kidney problems – The kidneys are designed to filter salt out of the body to maintain a normal water balance. They’ve got to work overtime because of the sodium consumed from pickle juice, which is dangerous for people with kidney disease. It can also lead to developing kidney disease if you drink so much.
How to Use Pickle Juice
If you love pickle juice and want to try the method, here are the steps:
- Two weeks before the test, drink 5 ounces of pickle juice before each meal. This slows down the gastric emptying and digestion, preventing carbohydrates from overloading the ability to process them. That means the drugs spill from the cells and out through the urine.
- Make sure to drink 5 ounces for each meal, including breakfast.
- Exercise to help increase the fat-burning effects of the juice.
- After 10 days, don’t exercise anymore. The vinegar in the pickle juice halts the fat-burning process and starts flushing out the drugs.
- Two hours before the test, drink 5 ounces of pickle juice. It contains cucumber water and the salt, both of which are diuretics. You may then produce a more diluted urine sample.
- You may also want to eat 3 to 5 ounces of a red-meat protein to help. The body is processing all the food, the diuretics make you use the bathroom, and the urine becomes cleaner with each pass.
Conclusion
Pickle juice might help you pass your drug test because of the salt (diuretic) and vinegar (change pH levels). However, laboratories have more sophisticated methods and processes now. Therefore, what worked in the past might not be sufficient for your current situation.
Laboratories are also trained to find adulterants, which are products that change pH levels, and vinegar is at the top of the list. Therefore, it might be better to stop using the drugs two weeks before your test and detox naturally or with specific detox formulas.