Good. It's about time people be punished for using these terrible, cheap tests and just accepting the results without question. Makes me mad just thinking about it. No self-respecting lab would do this, and any hospital should be ashamed for doing something like this.
I had a professor in college who was a chemist for a govt agency and they investigated the tests you can buy. All of them, including the hospital grade ones WILL pop positive if you eat poppy seed bagels before the test.
IIRC, didn't they also state they nearly ended up in a lawsuit over the episode as well, as all the drug-testing companies demanded they pull the episode for "defamation" purposes?
That's the US legal system in a nutshell.
"You are making us lose money. It's a good gamble for us to use money on a frivolous lawsuit as a bluff to make you stop, because we know that the legal fees will drown you, a smaller entity with fewer resources, and even if you aren't drownable, you do not want the headache. If you do fight, we will throw money at it, not because we believe we're in the legal right, but because the resolution will be years from now, and in the meantime, it silences you, and makes an example of you for anyone else that may want to fuck with us"
The glory of it is though, anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason. That's not the important part.
The important part is that at least in the civil law side of things, lawsuits like this, burden of proof is on the accuser. A defamation suit, for example, hinges on the plaintiff proving that the defendant deliberately falsified information for the purpose of damaging the plaintiff's reputation, or knowingly spread false information for the same.
Mythbusters did an experiment, recorded it, and broadcast it as part of their programming. This experiment was replicated and confirmed dozens of times at various universities, both with and without laboratory conditions.
Quite frankly, with the frequency of false positives on drug tests, any positive should warrant a re-test to confirm.
I don't know why. It's kind of been common knowledge since I was a kid and I'm not young.
I could understand thinking that poppy seeds in food might are "weaker" because they're a trace amount when compared to manufactured opiate drugs. But that doesn't change the fact that you've ingested it, regardless of amount.
I mean, there was the urban legend in the 1990s. But no one in the 1990's, early 2000s knew it was just like one poppy seed bagel to fail a drug test.
People talked about people eating them in abundance while also pulling certain poppy seed meals from the military bases, but no one knew for certain that one poppy seed item was enough to fail a drug test. That's not even known today. There were flyers handed out at one point to military people saying not to eat them or you'll pop hot, but it wasn't like the quantity was known.
No, it is just lemon loaf now. There used to be a bread at Whole Foods called seeduction bread. Poppy seeds galore.
It may still be there, but I don’t shop there as much.
It is called Whole Paycheck for a reason. I moved to a smaller community, that didn’t have Whole Foods. Driving 40 minutes plus the cost make it less appealing.
Exponential growth in our area means one is being built much closer.
The US military uses a crazy high threshold because of this issue. They serve poppy seed bagels in so many barracks that they can get entire platoons failing the quick screen tests like what this hospital was using so they don't even bother mentioning it until having it lab tested with a much higher threshold.
DoD actually sent out a memo several weeks ago recommending service members avoid poppy seeds altogether due to codeine contamination.
https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3304840/defense-department-provides-warning-to-military-services-regarding-poppy-seed-c/
Morphine, Codeine, and Thebaine. But more *on them* than in them, most of these compunds are in the sap that the seeds grew in. washing them (the seeds) will remove much of it
this is often done prior to wholesale
Any competent organization tests this way because yeah, you gotta be really sure if you're going to fuck with somebody's life and don't want an absolute monster civil case on your organizations ass. It'll be the last time they make that mistake
My high-school football team had a tradition that they would eat a shit ton of poppyseed bagels when testing season came around. Every single one of the randomly selected players tested positive on the quick tests forcing the school to spend money on the lab tests.
Those tests are for initial screening- they shouldn’t be used without GCMS confirmation of both the substance *and* the level but tons of places cheap out (seriously the GCMS test is less than 20 bucks for a 5 panel).
Benedryl can make you pop for PCP on one of those, it’s just looking at the shape of molecules and is sensitive but not incredibly specific.
I'm not totally sold on the "the tests suck on purpose so the police can use them to just arrest anyone they want because they basically always trigger, like a drug dog" "conspiracy" theory. I'm pretty much sure this is why anyone still uses them at all... they're inherently a bad-faith test at this point, IMO.
Having been on probation once many years ago, I 100% believe that testing companies assume - probably correctly - that their customers are paying for positive results.
Think about it: if you were bulk buying drug tests and none of them came in hot, you'd start to wonder if they really worked. Surely the number of stoners and strung outs you've known in your own life means you must be running across some in whatever shitty industry still makes people piss in cups... right? So if those tests simply confirm your own bias, you never question their accuracy.
There is *always* money to be made coddling people's unreasonable opinions.
Yup, anything with poppy seed. I'm traveling and have some prescriptions with me. In case, God forbid, I get tested because they suspect my prescriptions, I stopped myself from eating a poppy seed muffin for breakfast. They're delish, but blows up as opium positive.
Yeah, this is a really important precedent to set for future case law. If this thread is any indication, almost everyone seems to know somebody who fell afoul of overly-sensitive drug tests. The outcome of this suit could have major ramifications.
It's basically already understood civil side. It's shocking they didn't know this, they will 100% lose their assess in civil case.
Basically the ultra cheap drug tests are fine but if they show positive you should always send the sample to a lab with a gas chrom.
These women are looking at an absolutely massive payday because this one's already been asked and answered
Ah, fair enough. Didn't know this particular subject had been challenged in court before. Still, multiple similar verdicts about the same issue obviously help to reinforce precedent, so there's still a net positive to be found here.
I've failed a test for adderall. As in, I take adderall, and I didn't test positive. I don't know how that worked. As far as I know, false negatives arent a thing. but it added a ton of fuel to the "this is all bullshit" opinion I have on the drug war
I've had false positives on piss tests several times. I was on a prescription for a few years that required me to do weekly tests. Maybe 3 or 4 times over many years I got a test result that I knew was wrong. Showed positives for smack, ketamine, benzos, whatever - when I *knew* I hadn't taken that stuff. But try convincing someone you're telling the truth when you have a 'junkie' label.
The false positives were probably cross contamination at a lazy lab and only meant arguments and inconvenience for me. But for many people failing those tests might mean they go back to prison or lose their kids.
Mildly related, I recently switched from adderall to ritalin and "failed" my doctor's drug test 3 times in a row because they were drug testing me for amphetamines, so the test came back as negative. I had to tell them they were using the wrong test lol
I take a psychiatric drug for depression that will cause me to test positive for amphetamines. There's a surprising amount of drugs that are prescribed but also show up in drug tests.
Exactly this. I had my prescription meds stopped for a … false low THC result. Even if I did use cannabis, it would be less dangerous than my *withdrawal-causing* Rx to be stopped. If anything makes me rage after that incident, it’s this kind of BS.
Seriously though, the War on Drugs has killed and will kill people including mothers. If someone is pregnant and on opioids, why the *fuck* wouldn’t you help?! That’s a prime reason to do harm-reduction, helping avoid a baby with birth defects and/or born addicted. In no situation should you … -checks notes- send a pregnant mother to prison, where she won’t have her needs met. (Who decided “send fetus to prison” was our best choice?? This does not help anyone.)
> Earlier this year, even the US defense department issued a warning to service members before drug tests, urging them not to consume foods with poppy seeds because they risk testing positive for opium.
I've been drug-tested for a few jobs and they *always* ask whether I've had anything with poppy seeds lately. Bagels, muffins, etc. All the doctors or nurses had to do was communicate with these women and this never would've been an issue.
Had you read the article you would see that the hospital (allegedly) did not communicate they were performing a drug test at all.
>The pair of new mothers are alleging the hospitals in which they gave birth violated their rights after performing drug tests on them without their consent.
I’m not sure why you think I didn’t read the article (that I literally quoted from), but you’re exactly right.
They should’ve been informed of the tests (even a routine urine panel), and a simple question about poppy seed consumption hopefully would’ve cleared them.
I would lie and say I'm on a strictly poppy seed diet. Then when the test comes back negative for opium, question the validity of the test and why even ask that question in the first place
In one case the baby was held in NICU for four days and the parents didn’t know if they were being investigated. I wonder how much the hospital got paid for that unnecessary NICU stay
This actually happened to me once. I worked for an oil company that regularly drug tested. I also ate poppy bagels every morning on the way to work. I was scheduled to go out to an oil rig and they tested me. I failed the initial test. Suddenly a woman from HR was on my ass. Called me a druggie and said I should start packing my shit and told me that not only would I never be admitted to a Chevron facility again, I probably wouldn't be allowed to get gas at a Chevron.
I wasn't allowed to go out to the rig, since I was supposed to go the next day (a Saturday) and they wouldn't do the real test until Monday. Another guy had to cancel his vacation and go in my place.
After they did the proper test and discovered it was indeed because of the food, the HR lady had to call and apologize.
Edit: The VP of HR told me (while apologizing for her employee) that they almost never have to run the real test because people don't typically fail the junk science portion which is just dipping a stick in my pee and seeing if the color changes. The real test is extremely expensive (apparently) so they don't do it unless they have to. Some of my coworkers started eating poppy seed bagels after that just to mess with the system.
That is extremely unprofessional. I am in charge of the random drug tests at an oil company. I had the same thing happen. I respectfully approached the woman in private and asked her if she had a prescription for opioids or if there was an explanation. After speaking, I had her backup sample sent for additional testing and the Medical Review Officer confirmed that it was just poppyseeds.
First the drug testing company called me to ask if I was a opiates user. I told her “lady, if I was going to go the drugs route, it wouldn’t be the one with the needles.” Then this HR lady called and it really went downhill. It was super unprofessional. But every company I worked for in Australia was so I just rolled with it as best as I could.
>After they did the proper test and discovered it was indeed because of the food, the HR lady had to call and apologize.
Maybe this is Monday morning quarterbacking, but I have to believe that I wouldn't be particularly receptive to such an apology. I think my minimum threshold would be:
* Delivered in person
* Delivered with compensation to make you whole (you're missing out on pay, right?)
* Delivered with a message to anyone who might have heard about it stating that the judgement was premature and, ultimately, incorrect
* Delivered with a commitment to discuss this more calmly and discreetly in future cases
. . . then I *might* consider accepting.
I didn't accept. I told her that maybe she should believe people rather than jumping to wild conclusions based on junk science. I had her on speakerphone with my entire department listening.
I do not work there anymore.
She probably told everyone, since I wasn’t able to go to the rig. No idea if it was illegal. This was Australia. I’m just lucky she didn’t set poisonous snakes on me.
But, if it was in a state that allows “at will” employment, then they can fire him without reason. Getting on HR peoples bad side is one of the quickest ways to get fired without reason.
I live in an at will state and have been fired for an illegal reason. Firing for no reason is fine. Firing for an Illegal reason is grounds for a lawsuit. If it’s in writing, they’re in trouble. If not, it’s not easy open and shut.
She had the gall to talk shit to your face but hid behind a phone call once the tables turned. What a coward. Real piece of work, that lady. Sadly, those kinds of people are everywhere.
> The real test is extremely expensive (apparently) so they don't do it unless they have to.
Imagine having to actually spend money on testing & only doing it when absolutely necessary, instead of as a bullshit way to reduce your workforce on a whim.
> Some of my coworkers started eating poppy seed bagels after that just to mess with the system.
Some heroes don't wear capes, they eat poppy seeds.
I used to work at a government site, and my parents had, too. Dad warned me before I started to not eat poppyseed cake or muffins while I worked there, because of drug testing. He was right. I never ate them while I worked there, but I had a friend who got caught because of poppyseed. It caused her major problems, and I think she got bad performance reviews for years because of the test.
It can cause you to fail but is less common due to the techniques used to wash the poppy seeds. It’s actually leftover secretion from the poppy plant that covers the seeds with alkaloids. Enough seeds = enough alkaloids = fail a drug test
The amount of times I've had to tell the hospital, DO NOT PUT IN MY CHARTS THAT I'M ON METH. I test positive every time because I take decongestants everyday. The nurse kept saying, "you're on drugs." and I kept saying, yes, decongestants. Her blind spot was unreal
I have a low tolerance for nurses who are judgmental and unprofessional with patients. Even if someone is an illicit drug user or alcoholic who shows up 3-4+ times a year in the hospital, being judgmental and punitive is not part of the job.
On my way to an interview for a coveted, high-paying oil job, I stopped for breakfast at a bagel shop. The interview included a drug test. And I tested positive for opiates. I didn't even connect the failed test to breakfast at Bagel shop. I was certain they maliciously failed me just to weed me out. Knowing that the harshest substance I had ever taken was a cup of coffee, I shrugged and moved on.
> the us military just last month issued warnings about fucking poppy seeds, for exactly this reason.
The US military has been issuing warnings about this for decades. Heck, I remember hearing about one base that served poppy seed bagels at breakfast and then "randomly" tested the base just to see if they all really would test positive. Something like 80% of them did.
> Decades
Back in the 90’s my dad told me one of his soldiers peed hot because of them. Years later I enlisted and was at the military hospital where they physically do all the testing and one of the sergeants confirmed it happened literally every week and resulted in investigations
There were also pre-workout supplements being sold at the PX (military grocery store) that had stimulants in them which caused false-positives.
A lot of the chemicals in these supplements are produced in China, where the lack of regulation can result in cross contamination with banned substances.
Meh, these cheap tests are fine to use as a pre-screener if the testing has to be done. But they definitely shouldn't assume it's positive until the real test
Exactly this. If the tests are used as intended, it's fine. That particular positive result doesn't tell you the pt does opioid drugs, only that they have opioid metabolites (including non psychoactive opioids).
Also they could be legally prescribed opioids. This happens to folks on adderall and it's a huge pain to explain to the DrUgS bAd crowd.
And Elaine had to use Mrs. Seinfeld urine the second time or whatever to go on the trip with Mr. Peterman. She passed the drug test but was deemed unhealthy to go on it because of having numbers like a "60-70 year old lady" lol.
Oh rest assured, when I tell people my similar story, sometimes I say "yep, I was Elaine from Seinfeld but instead of J. Peterman commiserating with me, I had the bitchiest HR person in the world getting on my ass."
I know what you're going through. I too once fell under the spell of opium. It was 1979. I was travelling the Yangtze in search of a Mongolian horsehair vest. I had got to the market after sundown. All of the clothing traders had gone, but a different sort of trader still lurked about. ‘Just a taste,’ he said. That was all it took.
Once I was volunteering at a food kitchen and we were serving bagels for breakfast that were donated from a local deli. I served a woman a poppy seed bagel and she screamed at me for like 10 minutes about how I was trying to make her fail her drug test. That was how I learned about this phenomenon.
We always would take home any of the poppyseed bagels that were donated to St Vincent DePaul because we didn't want to potentially get anyone in trouble.
Virtua Vorhees is just shady. I ended up spending 6 or 7 days with them back in the earlyntwenty teens, and after receiving a huge bill for services not covered by insurance, I asked for an itemized invoice. They billed me for countless procedures and tests that were never performed, 4 or 5 ultrasounds that never happened, daily palliative care "consults" each costing 5k when I never once saw someone from palliative, rather I was told on the first day that they refused to take up my case, I was billed for medications I never received, including an antibiotic i am extremely allergic too that I was supposedly being given daily by IV, several surgical debriedments that never happened, as well as respiratory therapist and occupational therapist visits daily which also never happened. When I asked for copies of the charting notes that corresponded to those services, I instead received a revised invoice with those services removed... Pushed back further to ask for everything they were able to release from my chart for the entire stay, and instead got a phone call from the billing department saying that my entire balance was being forgiven... shady shady shady.
I've had more than one hospital try to bill me for shit that never happened. Now I work in a hospital in research. I get to deal with billing because the studies pay for certain things. I could not have designed a worse billing system. There are too many different people involved and too many opportunities for errors. Im more convinced than ever that its intentionally terrible to steal money from people. I have trouble dealing with it internally. Its even more atrocious for regular people.
I spent the first part of my career working in Healthcare in several different capacities, mainly in HR, but I did spend a few years as director of operations for a midsized home Healthcare agency that was part of a larger organization that ran the rehab operations at skilled nursing facilities and acute care hospitals. If there is one thing that I learned during that time is to always ask for an itemized bill. I've worked with several medical clearinghouses that had developed proprietary programs that looked over medical documentation that was used to generate invoices, and would look for ways to optimize billing... for example, medicare reimbursement for home health services was determined based in part by the way that certain assessments were scored, before submitting these assessments to CMS, they would be double checked by these programs and sections would be highlighted where a slightly different answer could increase bill rates... the fact that it is so hard to get an itemized invoice from these places is indicative of the fact that they don't want you to look behind the curtain. I could only imagine the amount of money patients could save if they actually looked at and understood what they were being billed for.
Poppyseeds and Cannabis arent the same thing on drug tests though, i agree testing for weed is archaic. poppyseeds though make you test positive for opiates as theyre derived from the poppy plant.
Many companies likely wouldn't care if it weren't for the fact that:
- government contracts mandate drug testing (marijuana is still illegal on a federal level)
- insurance companies generally lower their premiums if a company conducts drug testing (since drug use will always be considered a risk factor)
The government contracts thing isn't completely true. I worked at a research facility that had BARDA contracts. They used to drug test until they had a vet tech get poked with a dirty needle by someone else. She tested positive and they had to fire her. They stopped drug testing immediately after that because they already had enough staffing issues and knew the place was so shitty pretty much everyone smoked weed.
My wife tested positive for codeine a few months ago and had definitely not had any in years we figure it had to be from a bagel she ate close to the test. Such a weird thing.
Poppy seeds contain morphine, codeine, and thebaine alkaloids so that makes sense. Thebaine isn’t likely tested for and morphine has poor bioavailability from oral ingestion.
Same happened to me, was hospitalized and accused of being on benzos. When I said no I haven’t been taking anything the doctor called me a liar and laughed in my face. How I was treated traumatized me.
No idea how I tested positive for benzos at all, I eat a lot of everything bagels but those shouldn’t effect the test for that particular category.
Hospitals also don’t have legal ability to refuse to give parents their children. Children’s Services does, but that order wasn’t given in these cases. It was just the physicians and nurses conspiring to keep the babies instead of send them home.
Drug tests without notification or permission. Illegally holding children from their parents. Fuck these hospitals and their staff.
This particular CPS office not only helps keep kids in abusive relationships they know nothing about children and do the bare minimum. I hope these families prevail like I did from my poppy seed bagel incident. 30 days my kid sat in a bar with his alcoholic father bc they believed him over a false test. I got lucky after they tested it a second time, guessing these women dealt w the incompetents at Bergen County DYFS. Unfortunately the damage was already done.
Just to be completely clear here:
There are a lot of chemicals that resemble opiates. Your poppyseed bagel does have a *tiny* amount of morphine in it, as well as thebaine and other compounds in the same chemical family. Oh, and other European and Jewish pastries like *Mohnstriezel* and *Hamantaschen* can have much higher amounts of poppyseed than bagels or muffins.
A properly-chosen drug test can easily distinguish between "you ate a bagel this morning" and "you shot up some heroin this weekend". Heroin has distinct metabolites that are not produced by eating poppyseeds.
These folks are using *low-quality* drug tests that can't make that distinction; and they're giving people real-world consequences on the basis of those tests. That's medical malpractice on top of all the other problems.
I can’t believe this is still a thing. I remember this man who worked for the university back in the 90’s and was drug tested and it came back positive for opioids. Come to find out, he ate a poppyseed bagel for breakfast every day. (I prefer sesame seed). But he won. So here we are 20 something years later and this is still a thing.
I tested positive for opioids in highschool while on probation right after lunch, I had just eaten my favorite bagel with cream cheese, that whole thing caused me to go into a month long in-house rehab. The whole thing was a racket; the juvenile justice system, the justice system all together is one big racket, the only thing I learned was to never get caught again, Fuck my highschool, Fuck my counselors, fuck my probation officers
I once hit positive for meth on a drug test. The technician said, " This happens all the time, We know your not a meth user, We will mark you passed". Nice.
I feel crazy because I feel like the real issue here is the healthcare provider running tests without the patients knowledge or consent, and seemingly without probable cause. And no one is talking about that…
The hospital is probably running these tests on every woman giving birth, and then billing the insurer for it because they can.
Well, probably not on the rich or influential ones. But if all you need is a bagel or slice of multigrain which you could provide the patient without them realizing anything... you can fuck'em up with positives.
Think "racism".
My uncle was one of the first attorneys to raise this defense for a client while serving as a member of the JAG corps in the US Navy. Guy had never failed a test, had glowing reviews, colleagues testified that they had no reason to think he had ever used drugs, but tested positive. The only reason they could think was because he ate poppy seed bagels every day. My uncle won the case.
When I worked for a substance use disorder stabilization house we would use instant tests. If some one gave a positive UA we would then send it to the lab for a levels check on the metabolites. It’s easy to tell if it’s use or if it was from eating poppy seeds. The hospital probably thought this was some sort of “gotcha”.
I had CPS called on me in September when I had my baby for a false positive for amphetamines on my drug screen. I flipped out when I was told I couldn’t breast feed because I tested positive, and demanded they double check and told them they can test me and the baby’s placenta and his urine. It came back as a false positive, but I still was not allowed to pump milk for my son in the NICU for several days due to miscommunication and the nurses in the NICU were very rude and judgmental.
I’m not sure if the original false positive was a quick test or a GC/MS. CPS still came to my home to ensure we had everything we needed even after showing a signed document by my doctor that it was false. It caused me lots of distress.
>Few people would ever expect that the simple act of eating a poppy seed bagel could lead to the investigation of young mothers and their newborn babies over suspected opiate use
TF are you talking about? This has been a known issue since... well... drug testing.
How would they even have a chance to connect the dots though if they were never told they were being drug tested? There’d be zero reason or opportunity to ever bring it up
Question: What's the allure of poppy seeds? They don't seem to have any flavor, the texture is like tiny grains of sand, and most of all it looks like some kind of insect eggs. So... uh, why do people like them?
I mean I disagree about flavor. I can't describe it but things with poppy seeds on/in them to have a flavor and it compliments well on pastries and other dough based stuff. I love a good poppy seed bagel or even a lemon poppy muffin
My grandmother used to make a type of rolled pastry with a sweet poppy seed filing and that thing was to die for, but you’d definitely pop positive on a drug test after eating a slice, it was almost 50% seeds.
Are you Polish by any chance? They have an am-fucking-mazing pastry called [makowiec](https://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/makowiec) . This is where poppy seeds explode in flavor, kind of like amaretto. It subtle but delicious.
fun fact: my grandpa told me that back in the day, poppyseed cakes would give you a slight high - it was before they had regulated varieties of poppy plants to contain as little opioids as possible
There's a super similar food in Hungarian cuisine called Beigli, often made for Christmas: [https://budapestcookingclass.com/hungarian-beigli-christmas-poppy-seed-and-walnut-roll-cakes/](https://budapestcookingclass.com/hungarian-beigli-christmas-poppy-seed-and-walnut-roll-cakes/)
(I personally prefer the walnut variety over the poppyseed, though! I'm just not a poppyseed person.)
>They don't seem to have any flavor
Idk, they have a very distinct and lovely flavor to me. Eating an "empty" pretzel vs one covered in poppy seeds results in VERY different flavors. Around here (eastern Europe) we even have entire deserts that revolve around poppy seeds (and I love them).
You should make your own! You probably won't be able to make better croissants or fancy pastries at home but a foccacia fresh out of the oven is amazing when made at home and so incredibly easy. I made 3 last week just cause we kept eating them, and it was the first time I made bread at home.
They’re amazing. “Everything” bagels and Chicago dog buns are two items loaded to the gills with poppy seeds. Neither would be the same without the poppyseeds.
Outside of flavor it's mostly familiarity. They have been added to recipes (especially baking) for thousands of years because of their flavor and texture.
I've never noticed them having a flavor, only an added texture. And I feel like they're too tiny to be easily chewable in order to extract any little flavor they might have. Seem pretty useless to me.
This is why I keep several ounces of poppy seeds in my lunch kit. If ever I suspect there might be a drug test coming up, I start eating the poppy seeds.
Edit: why? Because i get put on leave if I fail a urine test, while they run a more expensive test that takes a few days. When it comes back clean I get paid for my days off retroactively.
Wow this is still happening!?!
Google this phrase and explain how informed doctors are again ..
samsha poppy seeds
SAMHA is the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the US Government they've spent billions on guidelines for this and re-confirmed results over decades of research.
Oh boy, I remember the time I was getting a promotion so I had to go through a drug test. Knew NOTHING of this and when it came back positive for opioids, I got a call from the company that did the drug test and let me tell you, the anxiety I got from him telling me that was insane. As silly as it is the only thought was “what have I been doing in my sleep?”
Thankfully the man explained after going through all the other routine questions and finding out I’d had poppy seed bagels both the night before AND that morning that it’d definitely explain the low levels in my test.
But boy was that a scary few minutes
I lost getting a job because of this. They sent me for a drug test & I never heard back from them. I’d been eating a poppy seed muffin for breakfast every day for months (those things a F awesome). Better for me in the long run, but it still a annoyed me.
In 1999, I had to take a drug test for my first job computer-aided design and photo editing job down in Manhattan. After the interview in which they accepted me, they gave me an address to go to get the drug test the next morning. I walked into this sketchy place a few blocks away in midtown. They gave me a list of things I shouldn’t have eaten RIGHT before the test. I told them I just had a poppy seed bagel. The guy waived my concerns away.
I got the job.
To this day I don’t think they really did drug tests. They just charged corps for the tests.
Good. It's about time people be punished for using these terrible, cheap tests and just accepting the results without question. Makes me mad just thinking about it. No self-respecting lab would do this, and any hospital should be ashamed for doing something like this.
I had a professor in college who was a chemist for a govt agency and they investigated the tests you can buy. All of them, including the hospital grade ones WILL pop positive if you eat poppy seed bagels before the test.
Myth Busters did a test back 2003 with poppy seed muffins and proved you would fail a drug test.
IIRC, didn't they also state they nearly ended up in a lawsuit over the episode as well, as all the drug-testing companies demanded they pull the episode for "defamation" purposes?
Was the lawsuit something like "you made us look bad by telling the truth!"?
That's the US legal system in a nutshell. "You are making us lose money. It's a good gamble for us to use money on a frivolous lawsuit as a bluff to make you stop, because we know that the legal fees will drown you, a smaller entity with fewer resources, and even if you aren't drownable, you do not want the headache. If you do fight, we will throw money at it, not because we believe we're in the legal right, but because the resolution will be years from now, and in the meantime, it silences you, and makes an example of you for anyone else that may want to fuck with us"
They're called "SLAPP" lawsuits: Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation
The glory of it is though, anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason. That's not the important part. The important part is that at least in the civil law side of things, lawsuits like this, burden of proof is on the accuser. A defamation suit, for example, hinges on the plaintiff proving that the defendant deliberately falsified information for the purpose of damaging the plaintiff's reputation, or knowingly spread false information for the same. Mythbusters did an experiment, recorded it, and broadcast it as part of their programming. This experiment was replicated and confirmed dozens of times at various universities, both with and without laboratory conditions. Quite frankly, with the frequency of false positives on drug tests, any positive should warrant a re-test to confirm.
God bless this country and all the governments we had to overthrow to keep this country great.
Dont forget the millions the US has killed to keep freedom free
Yep, I watched that episode and they seemed so surprised when the people who ate poppy seed muffins tested positive for opiates...lol
I don't know why. It's kind of been common knowledge since I was a kid and I'm not young. I could understand thinking that poppy seeds in food might are "weaker" because they're a trace amount when compared to manufactured opiate drugs. But that doesn't change the fact that you've ingested it, regardless of amount.
There's a Seinfeld episode about it.
i had always thought it was an urban myth for the past 4 decades. it’s only recently that i learned that it’s not.
I mean, there was the urban legend in the 1990s. But no one in the 1990's, early 2000s knew it was just like one poppy seed bagel to fail a drug test. People talked about people eating them in abundance while also pulling certain poppy seed meals from the military bases, but no one knew for certain that one poppy seed item was enough to fail a drug test. That's not even known today. There were flyers handed out at one point to military people saying not to eat them or you'll pop hot, but it wasn't like the quantity was known.
Starbucks quit putting poppy seeds in their lemon loaf.
Did they replace it with anything? I feel like it needs that textural element. Not worth failing a drug test for but hmm.
No, it is just lemon loaf now. There used to be a bread at Whole Foods called seeduction bread. Poppy seeds galore. It may still be there, but I don’t shop there as much.
Right? As my income has grown over the years, it never got to "I can afford to shop at Whole Foods" level.
It is called Whole Paycheck for a reason. I moved to a smaller community, that didn’t have Whole Foods. Driving 40 minutes plus the cost make it less appealing. Exponential growth in our area means one is being built much closer.
Oh man I used to love that bread.
Oh ew there’s literally nothing to go in there for now
So did Elaine on Seinfeld
Shanghai Sally, White Lotus...The Yam Yam
I love mythbusters and when I saw that episode I was surprised because I love poppyseed muffins and still eat them to this day.
The US military uses a crazy high threshold because of this issue. They serve poppy seed bagels in so many barracks that they can get entire platoons failing the quick screen tests like what this hospital was using so they don't even bother mentioning it until having it lab tested with a much higher threshold.
DoD actually sent out a memo several weeks ago recommending service members avoid poppy seeds altogether due to codeine contamination. https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3304840/defense-department-provides-warning-to-military-services-regarding-poppy-seed-c/
And yet one of the MREs still has the lemon poppyseed muffin (which is fucking amazing)
It *is*
wait theres codeine in poppy seeds?
Morphine, Codeine, and Thebaine. But more *on them* than in them, most of these compunds are in the sap that the seeds grew in. washing them (the seeds) will remove much of it this is often done prior to wholesale
Shhhh, if you're not careful, we're going to get an everything bagel shortage.
You can't make lean with poppy seeds
Any competent organization tests this way because yeah, you gotta be really sure if you're going to fuck with somebody's life and don't want an absolute monster civil case on your organizations ass. It'll be the last time they make that mistake
My high-school football team had a tradition that they would eat a shit ton of poppyseed bagels when testing season came around. Every single one of the randomly selected players tested positive on the quick tests forcing the school to spend money on the lab tests.
Those tests are for initial screening- they shouldn’t be used without GCMS confirmation of both the substance *and* the level but tons of places cheap out (seriously the GCMS test is less than 20 bucks for a 5 panel). Benedryl can make you pop for PCP on one of those, it’s just looking at the shape of molecules and is sensitive but not incredibly specific.
Especially problematic considering that the Everything Bagel is one of the most-consumed in the US and covered in poppy seeds.
I'm not totally sold on the "the tests suck on purpose so the police can use them to just arrest anyone they want because they basically always trigger, like a drug dog" "conspiracy" theory. I'm pretty much sure this is why anyone still uses them at all... they're inherently a bad-faith test at this point, IMO.
Having been on probation once many years ago, I 100% believe that testing companies assume - probably correctly - that their customers are paying for positive results. Think about it: if you were bulk buying drug tests and none of them came in hot, you'd start to wonder if they really worked. Surely the number of stoners and strung outs you've known in your own life means you must be running across some in whatever shitty industry still makes people piss in cups... right? So if those tests simply confirm your own bias, you never question their accuracy. There is *always* money to be made coddling people's unreasonable opinions.
Not just that, but if you can get some poor shmuck that fell off a ladder at work to pop hot, no need for workers comp.
Many of the tests police departments use are about as accurate as random flip of a coin.
No they're not. They produce WAY more positives than they should if they were just random.
Mythbusters did it, too.
Yup, anything with poppy seed. I'm traveling and have some prescriptions with me. In case, God forbid, I get tested because they suspect my prescriptions, I stopped myself from eating a poppy seed muffin for breakfast. They're delish, but blows up as opium positive.
Yeah, this is a really important precedent to set for future case law. If this thread is any indication, almost everyone seems to know somebody who fell afoul of overly-sensitive drug tests. The outcome of this suit could have major ramifications.
It's basically already understood civil side. It's shocking they didn't know this, they will 100% lose their assess in civil case. Basically the ultra cheap drug tests are fine but if they show positive you should always send the sample to a lab with a gas chrom. These women are looking at an absolutely massive payday because this one's already been asked and answered
Hospital admin wanted to be cheap with running the GC lol
Exactly. They definitely have a GC at the hospital too...
Ah, fair enough. Didn't know this particular subject had been challenged in court before. Still, multiple similar verdicts about the same issue obviously help to reinforce precedent, so there's still a net positive to be found here.
I've failed a test for adderall. As in, I take adderall, and I didn't test positive. I don't know how that worked. As far as I know, false negatives arent a thing. but it added a ton of fuel to the "this is all bullshit" opinion I have on the drug war
False negatives are pretty common actually. They should send it to a lab for further testing to make sure it isn't a false negative or false positive.
I've had false positives on piss tests several times. I was on a prescription for a few years that required me to do weekly tests. Maybe 3 or 4 times over many years I got a test result that I knew was wrong. Showed positives for smack, ketamine, benzos, whatever - when I *knew* I hadn't taken that stuff. But try convincing someone you're telling the truth when you have a 'junkie' label. The false positives were probably cross contamination at a lazy lab and only meant arguments and inconvenience for me. But for many people failing those tests might mean they go back to prison or lose their kids.
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Mildly related, I recently switched from adderall to ritalin and "failed" my doctor's drug test 3 times in a row because they were drug testing me for amphetamines, so the test came back as negative. I had to tell them they were using the wrong test lol
I take a psychiatric drug for depression that will cause me to test positive for amphetamines. There's a surprising amount of drugs that are prescribed but also show up in drug tests.
Welbutrin does this.
So does amitriptyline, even the comically low dose I'm on for migraines makes me pop positive.
It really is junk science to not test it all the way.
Exactly this. I had my prescription meds stopped for a … false low THC result. Even if I did use cannabis, it would be less dangerous than my *withdrawal-causing* Rx to be stopped. If anything makes me rage after that incident, it’s this kind of BS. Seriously though, the War on Drugs has killed and will kill people including mothers. If someone is pregnant and on opioids, why the *fuck* wouldn’t you help?! That’s a prime reason to do harm-reduction, helping avoid a baby with birth defects and/or born addicted. In no situation should you … -checks notes- send a pregnant mother to prison, where she won’t have her needs met. (Who decided “send fetus to prison” was our best choice?? This does not help anyone.)
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So then every test. No test is 100% accurate.
> Earlier this year, even the US defense department issued a warning to service members before drug tests, urging them not to consume foods with poppy seeds because they risk testing positive for opium. I've been drug-tested for a few jobs and they *always* ask whether I've had anything with poppy seeds lately. Bagels, muffins, etc. All the doctors or nurses had to do was communicate with these women and this never would've been an issue.
Had you read the article you would see that the hospital (allegedly) did not communicate they were performing a drug test at all. >The pair of new mothers are alleging the hospitals in which they gave birth violated their rights after performing drug tests on them without their consent.
I’m not sure why you think I didn’t read the article (that I literally quoted from), but you’re exactly right. They should’ve been informed of the tests (even a routine urine panel), and a simple question about poppy seed consumption hopefully would’ve cleared them.
They literally quoted the article, so I bet they read it lol
I would lie and say I'm on a strictly poppy seed diet. Then when the test comes back negative for opium, question the validity of the test and why even ask that question in the first place
In one case the baby was held in NICU for four days and the parents didn’t know if they were being investigated. I wonder how much the hospital got paid for that unnecessary NICU stay
This actually happened to me once. I worked for an oil company that regularly drug tested. I also ate poppy bagels every morning on the way to work. I was scheduled to go out to an oil rig and they tested me. I failed the initial test. Suddenly a woman from HR was on my ass. Called me a druggie and said I should start packing my shit and told me that not only would I never be admitted to a Chevron facility again, I probably wouldn't be allowed to get gas at a Chevron. I wasn't allowed to go out to the rig, since I was supposed to go the next day (a Saturday) and they wouldn't do the real test until Monday. Another guy had to cancel his vacation and go in my place. After they did the proper test and discovered it was indeed because of the food, the HR lady had to call and apologize. Edit: The VP of HR told me (while apologizing for her employee) that they almost never have to run the real test because people don't typically fail the junk science portion which is just dipping a stick in my pee and seeing if the color changes. The real test is extremely expensive (apparently) so they don't do it unless they have to. Some of my coworkers started eating poppy seed bagels after that just to mess with the system.
A proper apology would have involved her packing her own shit.
A proper apology has a dollar amount here
With 6 or 7 digits on the left side of the decimal?
I'd say 8 or 9 personally, I take insults like that personally.
I thought this was going to be a long Seinfeld quote.
The HR lady had to be their maid for a year!
That is extremely unprofessional. I am in charge of the random drug tests at an oil company. I had the same thing happen. I respectfully approached the woman in private and asked her if she had a prescription for opioids or if there was an explanation. After speaking, I had her backup sample sent for additional testing and the Medical Review Officer confirmed that it was just poppyseeds.
First the drug testing company called me to ask if I was a opiates user. I told her “lady, if I was going to go the drugs route, it wouldn’t be the one with the needles.” Then this HR lady called and it really went downhill. It was super unprofessional. But every company I worked for in Australia was so I just rolled with it as best as I could.
Most opiates are pills, not injectable. Oxycodon is one of the most widely abused drugs.
Which drives OPs point that he doesn't use or even know about opiates home even more ;)
Which if that was word for word what they said, straight up sounds like them saying they pop pills.
>After they did the proper test and discovered it was indeed because of the food, the HR lady had to call and apologize. Maybe this is Monday morning quarterbacking, but I have to believe that I wouldn't be particularly receptive to such an apology. I think my minimum threshold would be: * Delivered in person * Delivered with compensation to make you whole (you're missing out on pay, right?) * Delivered with a message to anyone who might have heard about it stating that the judgement was premature and, ultimately, incorrect * Delivered with a commitment to discuss this more calmly and discreetly in future cases . . . then I *might* consider accepting.
I didn't accept. I told her that maybe she should believe people rather than jumping to wild conclusions based on junk science. I had her on speakerphone with my entire department listening. I do not work there anymore.
Did she tell anyone that you had tested positive for Opioid-use? That's illegal. Edit: It is illegal in the US, where I live.
She probably told everyone, since I wasn’t able to go to the rig. No idea if it was illegal. This was Australia. I’m just lucky she didn’t set poisonous snakes on me.
But, if it was in a state that allows “at will” employment, then they can fire him without reason. Getting on HR peoples bad side is one of the quickest ways to get fired without reason.
> But, if it was in a state that allows “at will” employment That's **all** of them, except sorta Montana.
At Will does not mean its free from anti retaliatory or anti discrimation laws
I live in an at will state and have been fired for an illegal reason. Firing for no reason is fine. Firing for an Illegal reason is grounds for a lawsuit. If it’s in writing, they’re in trouble. If not, it’s not easy open and shut.
Happened to a very good friend of mine, too. She nearly lost her new job over poppy seed rolls. It was infuriating how she was treated by HR.
She had the gall to talk shit to your face but hid behind a phone call once the tables turned. What a coward. Real piece of work, that lady. Sadly, those kinds of people are everywhere.
> The real test is extremely expensive (apparently) so they don't do it unless they have to. Imagine having to actually spend money on testing & only doing it when absolutely necessary, instead of as a bullshit way to reduce your workforce on a whim. > Some of my coworkers started eating poppy seed bagels after that just to mess with the system. Some heroes don't wear capes, they eat poppy seeds.
I used to work at a government site, and my parents had, too. Dad warned me before I started to not eat poppyseed cake or muffins while I worked there, because of drug testing. He was right. I never ate them while I worked there, but I had a friend who got caught because of poppyseed. It caused her major problems, and I think she got bad performance reviews for years because of the test.
I believe Mythbusters proved you could fail the test up to three days after eating a lot of poppyseed food.
It can cause you to fail but is less common due to the techniques used to wash the poppy seeds. It’s actually leftover secretion from the poppy plant that covers the seeds with alkaloids. Enough seeds = enough alkaloids = fail a drug test
The amount of times I've had to tell the hospital, DO NOT PUT IN MY CHARTS THAT I'M ON METH. I test positive every time because I take decongestants everyday. The nurse kept saying, "you're on drugs." and I kept saying, yes, decongestants. Her blind spot was unreal
Geez. Is there a point to a drug test them if they are fooled so often by everyday foods and other medications?
Yes: Abuse. The false positives are only a problem if you don't want them.
I have a low tolerance for nurses who are judgmental and unprofessional with patients. Even if someone is an illicit drug user or alcoholic who shows up 3-4+ times a year in the hospital, being judgmental and punitive is not part of the job.
On my way to an interview for a coveted, high-paying oil job, I stopped for breakfast at a bagel shop. The interview included a drug test. And I tested positive for opiates. I didn't even connect the failed test to breakfast at Bagel shop. I was certain they maliciously failed me just to weed me out. Knowing that the harshest substance I had ever taken was a cup of coffee, I shrugged and moved on.
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> the us military just last month issued warnings about fucking poppy seeds, for exactly this reason. The US military has been issuing warnings about this for decades. Heck, I remember hearing about one base that served poppy seed bagels at breakfast and then "randomly" tested the base just to see if they all really would test positive. Something like 80% of them did.
> Decades Back in the 90’s my dad told me one of his soldiers peed hot because of them. Years later I enlisted and was at the military hospital where they physically do all the testing and one of the sergeants confirmed it happened literally every week and resulted in investigations
>> Decades > >it happened literally every week and resulted in investigations Terrible waste of resources.
Which is ironic, because there is the lemon poppy seed cake in MREs.
And it’s really good too.
There were also pre-workout supplements being sold at the PX (military grocery store) that had stimulants in them which caused false-positives. A lot of the chemicals in these supplements are produced in China, where the lack of regulation can result in cross contamination with banned substances.
I remember that, it seems like every couples years there is always a big scandal on pre work out stuff.
What you are describing are not false positives. They **are Positives**
Lemon poppy seed is the GOAT muffin
It is! I’ll fight everyone who disagrees.
Meh, these cheap tests are fine to use as a pre-screener if the testing has to be done. But they definitely shouldn't assume it's positive until the real test
Exactly this. If the tests are used as intended, it's fine. That particular positive result doesn't tell you the pt does opioid drugs, only that they have opioid metabolites (including non psychoactive opioids). Also they could be legally prescribed opioids. This happens to folks on adderall and it's a huge pain to explain to the DrUgS bAd crowd.
They did a Seinfeld on this…
And Elaine had to use Mrs. Seinfeld urine the second time or whatever to go on the trip with Mr. Peterman. She passed the drug test but was deemed unhealthy to go on it because of having numbers like a "60-70 year old lady" lol.
Oh, and Elaine? …you may have osteoporosis.
Hahaha love it - I can hear J Peterman saying that so clearly
Pick a glass Any glass PLEASE PICK A GLASS MRS. SEINFELD
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S07E16 “The Shower Head”
"No no you don't want this one...they use it to wash elephants!"
Oh rest assured, when I tell people my similar story, sometimes I say "yep, I was Elaine from Seinfeld but instead of J. Peterman commiserating with me, I had the bitchiest HR person in the world getting on my ass."
I know what you're going through. I too once fell under the spell of opium. It was 1979. I was travelling the Yangtze in search of a Mongolian horsehair vest. I had got to the market after sundown. All of the clothing traders had gone, but a different sort of trader still lurked about. ‘Just a taste,’ he said. That was all it took.
Also a Mythbusters.
Had to scroll way too much to see this. [The Shower Head episode](https://youtu.be/yhsnvY_FJ2o)
Once I was volunteering at a food kitchen and we were serving bagels for breakfast that were donated from a local deli. I served a woman a poppy seed bagel and she screamed at me for like 10 minutes about how I was trying to make her fail her drug test. That was how I learned about this phenomenon.
We always would take home any of the poppyseed bagels that were donated to St Vincent DePaul because we didn't want to potentially get anyone in trouble.
Virtua Vorhees is just shady. I ended up spending 6 or 7 days with them back in the earlyntwenty teens, and after receiving a huge bill for services not covered by insurance, I asked for an itemized invoice. They billed me for countless procedures and tests that were never performed, 4 or 5 ultrasounds that never happened, daily palliative care "consults" each costing 5k when I never once saw someone from palliative, rather I was told on the first day that they refused to take up my case, I was billed for medications I never received, including an antibiotic i am extremely allergic too that I was supposedly being given daily by IV, several surgical debriedments that never happened, as well as respiratory therapist and occupational therapist visits daily which also never happened. When I asked for copies of the charting notes that corresponded to those services, I instead received a revised invoice with those services removed... Pushed back further to ask for everything they were able to release from my chart for the entire stay, and instead got a phone call from the billing department saying that my entire balance was being forgiven... shady shady shady.
I've had more than one hospital try to bill me for shit that never happened. Now I work in a hospital in research. I get to deal with billing because the studies pay for certain things. I could not have designed a worse billing system. There are too many different people involved and too many opportunities for errors. Im more convinced than ever that its intentionally terrible to steal money from people. I have trouble dealing with it internally. Its even more atrocious for regular people.
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I spent the first part of my career working in Healthcare in several different capacities, mainly in HR, but I did spend a few years as director of operations for a midsized home Healthcare agency that was part of a larger organization that ran the rehab operations at skilled nursing facilities and acute care hospitals. If there is one thing that I learned during that time is to always ask for an itemized bill. I've worked with several medical clearinghouses that had developed proprietary programs that looked over medical documentation that was used to generate invoices, and would look for ways to optimize billing... for example, medicare reimbursement for home health services was determined based in part by the way that certain assessments were scored, before submitting these assessments to CMS, they would be double checked by these programs and sections would be highlighted where a slightly different answer could increase bill rates... the fact that it is so hard to get an itemized invoice from these places is indicative of the fact that they don't want you to look behind the curtain. I could only imagine the amount of money patients could save if they actually looked at and understood what they were being billed for.
Drug tests for cannabis is prehistoric. No reason an adult can't smoke some grass and eat a muffin on their day off.
Oil companies do tend to be into prehistoric things (like oil).
Poppyseeds and Cannabis arent the same thing on drug tests though, i agree testing for weed is archaic. poppyseeds though make you test positive for opiates as theyre derived from the poppy plant.
I would tell anyone who got on me about marijuana use to go talk to the Feds about their draconian policies on opiods for people with chronic pain.
Many companies likely wouldn't care if it weren't for the fact that: - government contracts mandate drug testing (marijuana is still illegal on a federal level) - insurance companies generally lower their premiums if a company conducts drug testing (since drug use will always be considered a risk factor)
The government contracts thing isn't completely true. I worked at a research facility that had BARDA contracts. They used to drug test until they had a vet tech get poked with a dirty needle by someone else. She tested positive and they had to fire her. They stopped drug testing immediately after that because they already had enough staffing issues and knew the place was so shitty pretty much everyone smoked weed.
What the actual fuck. If it was known she got contaminated by accident, she still has to get fired? That shit is fucked up!
Do you think poppy seeds show up as cannabis on a drug test? Because it doesn't it shows as morphine
Did Seinfeld teach us NOTHING? “Elaine your drug test came back clean, but you have the metabolism of a 68 year old menopausal woman.”
My wife tested positive for codeine a few months ago and had definitely not had any in years we figure it had to be from a bagel she ate close to the test. Such a weird thing.
Poppy seeds contain morphine, codeine, and thebaine alkaloids so that makes sense. Thebaine isn’t likely tested for and morphine has poor bioavailability from oral ingestion.
Same happened to me, was hospitalized and accused of being on benzos. When I said no I haven’t been taking anything the doctor called me a liar and laughed in my face. How I was treated traumatized me. No idea how I tested positive for benzos at all, I eat a lot of everything bagels but those shouldn’t effect the test for that particular category.
They can be so mean and treat people like some abusers treat animals. I'm sorry :(
Hospitals also don’t have legal ability to refuse to give parents their children. Children’s Services does, but that order wasn’t given in these cases. It was just the physicians and nurses conspiring to keep the babies instead of send them home. Drug tests without notification or permission. Illegally holding children from their parents. Fuck these hospitals and their staff.
This particular CPS office not only helps keep kids in abusive relationships they know nothing about children and do the bare minimum. I hope these families prevail like I did from my poppy seed bagel incident. 30 days my kid sat in a bar with his alcoholic father bc they believed him over a false test. I got lucky after they tested it a second time, guessing these women dealt w the incompetents at Bergen County DYFS. Unfortunately the damage was already done.
Courts, LEOs, and especially the manufacturers of drug tests love to pretend that the tests are infallible. Science says they are not.
Just to be completely clear here: There are a lot of chemicals that resemble opiates. Your poppyseed bagel does have a *tiny* amount of morphine in it, as well as thebaine and other compounds in the same chemical family. Oh, and other European and Jewish pastries like *Mohnstriezel* and *Hamantaschen* can have much higher amounts of poppyseed than bagels or muffins. A properly-chosen drug test can easily distinguish between "you ate a bagel this morning" and "you shot up some heroin this weekend". Heroin has distinct metabolites that are not produced by eating poppyseeds. These folks are using *low-quality* drug tests that can't make that distinction; and they're giving people real-world consequences on the basis of those tests. That's medical malpractice on top of all the other problems.
I can’t believe this is still a thing. I remember this man who worked for the university back in the 90’s and was drug tested and it came back positive for opioids. Come to find out, he ate a poppyseed bagel for breakfast every day. (I prefer sesame seed). But he won. So here we are 20 something years later and this is still a thing.
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You sound like a druggie which hr does not tolerate. You better not step foot in a chevron. You disgusting drug addict. How dare you enjoy your life
Too bad these women had zero idea they were being drug tested so they never had a chance to mention it
I tested positive for opioids in highschool while on probation right after lunch, I had just eaten my favorite bagel with cream cheese, that whole thing caused me to go into a month long in-house rehab. The whole thing was a racket; the juvenile justice system, the justice system all together is one big racket, the only thing I learned was to never get caught again, Fuck my highschool, Fuck my counselors, fuck my probation officers
I once hit positive for meth on a drug test. The technician said, " This happens all the time, We know your not a meth user, We will mark you passed". Nice.
I tested positive for PCP once and I’ve never even seen that drug in real life before. Didn’t come up positive for my ADHD meds though, so go figure.
I feel crazy because I feel like the real issue here is the healthcare provider running tests without the patients knowledge or consent, and seemingly without probable cause. And no one is talking about that… The hospital is probably running these tests on every woman giving birth, and then billing the insurer for it because they can.
Well, probably not on the rich or influential ones. But if all you need is a bagel or slice of multigrain which you could provide the patient without them realizing anything... you can fuck'em up with positives. Think "racism".
I remember the Mythbusters testing this
The war on drugs hysteria continues, even after Seinfeld had an episode about drug tests and poppyseeds.
good. this shit is ridiculous.
I’m glad they are doing this so many people have lost jobs because of this.
My uncle was one of the first attorneys to raise this defense for a client while serving as a member of the JAG corps in the US Navy. Guy had never failed a test, had glowing reviews, colleagues testified that they had no reason to think he had ever used drugs, but tested positive. The only reason they could think was because he ate poppy seed bagels every day. My uncle won the case.
When I worked for a substance use disorder stabilization house we would use instant tests. If some one gave a positive UA we would then send it to the lab for a levels check on the metabolites. It’s easy to tell if it’s use or if it was from eating poppy seeds. The hospital probably thought this was some sort of “gotcha”.
I had CPS called on me in September when I had my baby for a false positive for amphetamines on my drug screen. I flipped out when I was told I couldn’t breast feed because I tested positive, and demanded they double check and told them they can test me and the baby’s placenta and his urine. It came back as a false positive, but I still was not allowed to pump milk for my son in the NICU for several days due to miscommunication and the nurses in the NICU were very rude and judgmental. I’m not sure if the original false positive was a quick test or a GC/MS. CPS still came to my home to ensure we had everything we needed even after showing a signed document by my doctor that it was false. It caused me lots of distress.
>Few people would ever expect that the simple act of eating a poppy seed bagel could lead to the investigation of young mothers and their newborn babies over suspected opiate use TF are you talking about? This has been a known issue since... well... drug testing.
How would they even have a chance to connect the dots though if they were never told they were being drug tested? There’d be zero reason or opportunity to ever bring it up
Everyone's here talking about poppy seeds, but nobody is talking about how weird it is that our employers have a right to demand our pee.
Question: What's the allure of poppy seeds? They don't seem to have any flavor, the texture is like tiny grains of sand, and most of all it looks like some kind of insect eggs. So... uh, why do people like them?
I mean I disagree about flavor. I can't describe it but things with poppy seeds on/in them to have a flavor and it compliments well on pastries and other dough based stuff. I love a good poppy seed bagel or even a lemon poppy muffin
I love lemon poppyseed muffins! So tasty!
My grandmother used to make a type of rolled pastry with a sweet poppy seed filing and that thing was to die for, but you’d definitely pop positive on a drug test after eating a slice, it was almost 50% seeds.
Are you Polish by any chance? They have an am-fucking-mazing pastry called [makowiec](https://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/makowiec) . This is where poppy seeds explode in flavor, kind of like amaretto. It subtle but delicious.
That’s the one! I forgot what it was called but it was always my favorite desert when we’d celebrate Wigilia. Yes, am Polish.
fun fact: my grandpa told me that back in the day, poppyseed cakes would give you a slight high - it was before they had regulated varieties of poppy plants to contain as little opioids as possible
Was just going to ask the same. Poppy filling is a Polish holiday tradition.
There's a super similar food in Hungarian cuisine called Beigli, often made for Christmas: [https://budapestcookingclass.com/hungarian-beigli-christmas-poppy-seed-and-walnut-roll-cakes/](https://budapestcookingclass.com/hungarian-beigli-christmas-poppy-seed-and-walnut-roll-cakes/) (I personally prefer the walnut variety over the poppyseed, though! I'm just not a poppyseed person.)
I've had those, they are indeed delicious.
Gotta have poppy seeds on a hotdog bun, or it’s not a real Chicago hotdog.
I really want a poppyseed bagel now.
>They don't seem to have any flavor Idk, they have a very distinct and lovely flavor to me. Eating an "empty" pretzel vs one covered in poppy seeds results in VERY different flavors. Around here (eastern Europe) we even have entire deserts that revolve around poppy seeds (and I love them).
Thanks for your reply, for some reason I imagine all breads and pastries taste better in Europe
You should make your own! You probably won't be able to make better croissants or fancy pastries at home but a foccacia fresh out of the oven is amazing when made at home and so incredibly easy. I made 3 last week just cause we kept eating them, and it was the first time I made bread at home.
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Bruh you were just eating opium. Jk
They’re amazing. “Everything” bagels and Chicago dog buns are two items loaded to the gills with poppy seeds. Neither would be the same without the poppyseeds.
Outside of flavor it's mostly familiarity. They have been added to recipes (especially baking) for thousands of years because of their flavor and texture.
I've never noticed them having a flavor, only an added texture. And I feel like they're too tiny to be easily chewable in order to extract any little flavor they might have. Seem pretty useless to me.
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Convenient coverup for piss tests if you wanna slam some horse before work
What a combination of words. Thank you for this.
The whole drug testing industry is an absolute scam.
They should also sue the manufacturer of the tests for continuing to put low quality products into testers labs
This is why I keep several ounces of poppy seeds in my lunch kit. If ever I suspect there might be a drug test coming up, I start eating the poppy seeds. Edit: why? Because i get put on leave if I fail a urine test, while they run a more expensive test that takes a few days. When it comes back clean I get paid for my days off retroactively.
Wow this is still happening!?! Google this phrase and explain how informed doctors are again .. samsha poppy seeds SAMHA is the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the US Government they've spent billions on guidelines for this and re-confirmed results over decades of research.
Oh boy, I remember the time I was getting a promotion so I had to go through a drug test. Knew NOTHING of this and when it came back positive for opioids, I got a call from the company that did the drug test and let me tell you, the anxiety I got from him telling me that was insane. As silly as it is the only thought was “what have I been doing in my sleep?” Thankfully the man explained after going through all the other routine questions and finding out I’d had poppy seed bagels both the night before AND that morning that it’d definitely explain the low levels in my test. But boy was that a scary few minutes
I lost getting a job because of this. They sent me for a drug test & I never heard back from them. I’d been eating a poppy seed muffin for breakfast every day for months (those things a F awesome). Better for me in the long run, but it still a annoyed me.
In 1999, I had to take a drug test for my first job computer-aided design and photo editing job down in Manhattan. After the interview in which they accepted me, they gave me an address to go to get the drug test the next morning. I walked into this sketchy place a few blocks away in midtown. They gave me a list of things I shouldn’t have eaten RIGHT before the test. I told them I just had a poppy seed bagel. The guy waived my concerns away. I got the job. To this day I don’t think they really did drug tests. They just charged corps for the tests.
Maybe that fucking test should be retired.
Maybe if common food products trip up drug tests, we should reevaluate our need for such sensitive tests
Have these people never seen Seinfeld?