How long a high lasts depends almost entirely on what substance you’re talking about. A cocaine high fades in one to two hours. An edible cannabis high can stretch past 12 hours. Most other substances fall somewhere in between, and factors like your body weight, liver function, and tolerance level shift the timeline further.
Cannabis: Smoked vs. Edibles
Smoking or vaping cannabis produces effects within seconds to a few minutes. The high peaks around 30 minutes in and generally lasts up to 6 hours, though the most intense period is usually the first two to three hours. Residual effects like brain fog or mild relaxation can linger for up to 24 hours.
Edibles are a completely different experience. Because THC has to pass through your digestive system and liver before reaching your brain, onset takes anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. This delay is the reason people accidentally take too much: they feel nothing after an hour, eat more, and then both doses hit at once. The high from edibles peaks around 4 hours after eating and can last up to 12 hours total, with residual effects stretching to 24 hours. If you’re new to edibles, the standard advice is to start with a low dose and wait at least two full hours before considering more.
Alcohol
Your liver processes alcohol at a steady rate of roughly one standard drink per hour. A standard drink is one 12-ounce beer, one 5-ounce glass of wine, or one 1.5-ounce shot of liquor. So if you’ve had four drinks, you’re looking at approximately four hours before the alcohol fully clears your system. Nothing speeds this up. Coffee, cold showers, fresh air, and exercise won’t make you sober faster. Time is the only thing that works.
The peak of intoxication usually hits 30 to 90 minutes after your last drink, depending on whether you ate beforehand. A full stomach slows absorption significantly. Impairment lingers even as your blood alcohol level drops, meaning you can still have slower reaction times and impaired judgment well before you feel completely “normal” again.
Stimulants
Cocaine produces a short, intense high lasting 1 to 2 hours. The rush from snorting hits within a few minutes and peaks quickly, which is why people tend to redose frequently. Crack cocaine, which is smoked, produces an even shorter high of roughly 5 to 15 minutes.
Methamphetamine is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Its effects last 8 to 12 hours, and some users stay awake for days during binges. The extended duration comes from the way the drug is broken down in the body: meth is metabolized much more slowly than cocaine, so it keeps stimulating the brain long after the initial rush fades. The crash that follows can involve extreme fatigue, depression, and intense cravings.
Psychedelics
Psilocybin mushrooms produce a trip that typically wraps up within 6 hours. Effects usually begin 20 to 40 minutes after eating them, with the most intense period falling between hours two and four. Many people report a gentle “afterglow” of elevated mood and reflective thinking for a day or two afterward, though this isn’t the same as still being high.
LSD lasts considerably longer. A single dose can keep you in an altered state for a full 10 hours, sometimes longer. The experience tends to come in waves, with periods of more and less intense visual and emotional effects. Because of this extended timeline, taking LSD late in the day almost guarantees a sleepless night.
Sedatives and Prescription Drugs
Sedatives vary widely. Short-acting versions produce calming effects that peak within one to two hours and wear off relatively quickly. Long-acting versions, by contrast, have active byproducts that remain in your system for days, with half-lives exceeding 100 hours. This means the sedative effects can build up if you take repeated doses, making you progressively more impaired even at the same dose. Opioid painkillers follow a similar pattern: immediate-release formulations produce a high lasting roughly 4 to 6 hours, while extended-release versions are designed to work over 8 to 12 hours.
Why Duration Varies From Person to Person
Two people can take the same substance at the same dose and have noticeably different experiences. The biggest reason is liver metabolism. Your liver contains a family of enzymes responsible for breaking down most drugs, and genetic differences mean some people process substances faster or slower than others. If you’re a fast metabolizer, your high will be shorter and possibly less intense. If you’re a slow metabolizer, the same dose hits harder and hangs around longer.
Age plays a real role too. Older adults see a reduction in liver processing capacity of 30% or more because both liver volume and blood flow decline with age. This means the same glass of wine or the same dose of a sedative lasts noticeably longer in a 70-year-old than in a 30-year-old. At the other extreme, newborns and young children have immature liver enzyme systems that make them especially vulnerable to prolonged drug effects.
Other factors that shift the timeline include body weight and composition (THC, for example, is stored in fat tissue and releases slowly), whether you’ve eaten recently, how hydrated you are, and whether you’re taking other substances at the same time. Many drugs compete for the same liver enzymes, so combining substances can slow the breakdown of both and extend intoxication unpredictably. Chronic liver disease or heart failure also impairs metabolism, making any substance last longer than expected.
Quick Comparison by Substance
- Smoked cannabis: up to 6 hours
- Cannabis edibles: up to 12 hours
- Alcohol: roughly 1 hour per standard drink
- Cocaine: 1 to 2 hours
- Methamphetamine: 8 to 12 hours
- Psilocybin mushrooms: up to 6 hours
- LSD: up to 10 hours
These are averages. Your personal experience will shift based on dose, tolerance, and the metabolic factors above. Higher doses don’t just make the effects stronger; they typically make them last longer too, because your liver needs more time to clear a larger amount from your system.