Susan Horton had been a stay-at-home mom for almost 20 years, and now—pregnant with her fifth child—she felt a hard-won confidence in herself as a mother.
Then she ate a salad from Costco.
Horton didn’t realize that she would be drug-tested before her child’s birth. Or that the poppy seeds in her salad could trigger a positive result on a urine drug screen, the quick test that hospitals often use to check pregnant patients for illicit drugs. Many common foods and medications—from antacids to blood pressure and cold medicines—can prompt erroneous results.
If Horton had been tested under different circumstances—for example, if she was a government employee and required to be tested as part of her job—she would have been entitled to a more advanced test and to a review from a specially trained doctor to confirm the initial result.
Back when I had a job that required regular drug testing we WERE told to not eat poppy seeds. But my understanding is that, unless you have other digestive issues (not sure if a baby would count?), it is incredibly unlikely to test positive unless you are mainlining poppy seeds for weeks on end.
Your understanding is incorrect. It varies depending on the sensitivity of the test and the seeds being ingested, but it is actually quite possible for poppy seeds to trigger a false positive on a urine test for opiates, and it does happen. MythBusters tested this in their 3rd episode many years ago. They bought test kits that were publicly available for workplace testing and followed their instructions. They, like you, went in thinking it was just a myth. The plan was that they would continue ingesting foods with poppy seeds until they either got a positive test or they ate such ridiculous quantities that it wasn’t worth continuing. But they started getting positive results very quickly, (after just a few servings of either poppy seed bagels or poppy seed cake) and they stayed positive for a couple days. They called the companies that manufactured the tests and were assured repeatedly that it was not possible (because of course they would never admit that their tests can get false positive results). US Federal employers that test actually mandate that their tests have a much higher threshold because of this effect. But not everyone uses tests that adhere to that standard, and many are just way too sensitive.
https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3306336/service-members-should-avoid-foods-with-poppy-seeds/
https://drugfoundation.org.nz/articles/mythbusters-poppy-seeds
https://www.usada.org/spirit-of-sport/education/can-poppyseeds-cause-a-positive-drug-test/
I loved Mythubsters but they were far from rigorous scientists (and Adam Savage says that every time he talks about Mythbusters to get Will Smith’s Tested some views).
Again, there are LOTS of variables involved including even whether the poppy seeds were washed or how sensitive the test is. My understanding is the disposable OTC-ish tests tend to be much higher sensitivity because they need to last a lot longer than chemicals in a lab.
Can it happen? Yes. Just like you CAN pop positive for THC from just walking too close to the stoners at a crag. But considering this was mass produced and processed salad dressing at a frigging costco? That is very much in the “oh god, I ate one poppy seed muffin!” territory. And considering that most of those arguments are geared toward people who will be unemployed if they piss hot, it is going to err on the side of caution.
Because there is a big gap between possible and probable. And you’ll note that almost all reputable sources say “it is possible and you should avoid this” in the same way that basically everything sold in California is potentially cancerous.
In fact, for Mythubsters in particular: I would need to rewatch that episode (… I need to rewatch most of their episodes, honestly) but they were always in downtown San Francisco, right? Could EASILY see a case where they got gourmet/organic poppy seed muffins rather than the insanely processed crap you find at a kroger (or a costco).
Going back to hemp oil and THC. From actual tests we totally didn’t misappropriate government lab resources to run, Bronners was incredibly processed and safe. But there was also enough variance bottle to bottle that I would never have (knowingly) risked it. We did basic statistics on the 4-ish bottles we tested but… money.
Whereas we also got a hold of some of the oil used at a local spa and that shit would have made Snoop Dogg dizzy.
I wasn’t presenting Mythbusters as rigorous science, simply pointing out that a false positive is possible when using the tests as directed. If you want hard science, just go to Mayo Clinic’s practical guide for clinicians:
https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)61120-8/fulltext
Opiate screening cutoff levels for DHHS were changed from 300 ng/mL to 2000 ng/mL of morphine in December 1998 to avoid false-positive results from poppy-seed ingestion. However, the sensitivity for detecting true opiate use can be a concern,112 and most clinical laboratories continue to use the lower cutoff.53 Positive results for heroin abuse are caused by use of prescribed opiates, such as codeine and hydrocodone; however, ingestion of modest amounts of poppy seeds has been known to cause a positive result from urinalysis. Ingestion of poppy-seed cookies (containing about 1 teaspoon of poppy-seed filling available commercially in the United States for baking) produced positive results for opiates within 2 hours of ingestion among 5 patients.62 Codeine was also found in a concentration of 20 ng/mL in 2 samples 2 hours after ingestion. Urine samples analyzed after 24 hours were negative for opiates. Similar results were seen in another analysis in which consumption of poppy-seed bagels produced positive results for codeine and morphine up to 25 hours after ingestion.60 A single bagel was estimated to contain 1.5 mg of morphine and 0.1 mg of codeine. Similar results were observed in other analyses with slight variations ranging from 1 hour for earliest detection of morphine to 60 hours for the latest detection.20
They have citations with links. I’m not going to copy them all here.
Yes. What that says is that it is possible to false-positive. Particularly if the test is overly sensitive
As for the number of patients who did false positive: I might be having one of those days but I can’t find the study size for those. It looks like they are only in referenced papers that I don’t have access to because of a different problem in society.
Which gets back to what I have been saying all alone: Yes, it is possible. No, it is not particularly probable. But considering the consequences of a false positive, almost all guidance is going to say to err on the side of caution.
And, to reiterate, it is insane that social services would step in immediately rather than waiting for a blood test from someone who is already confined to a hospital because… pregnancy.
I love MythBusters, but their results are inconvenient to my unfounded opinions
