American soldiers will no longer enjoy a good poppy seed bagel. The US Department of Defense strongly recommends that soldiers avoid eating poppy seeds because they can affect their drug test results.
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It was “out of caution” that an undersecretary of defense at the Department of Defense issued a memo last week advising service members to avoid foods and baked goods containing poppy seeds.
Recent data suggests that some varieties of these seeds may have high levels of codeine, which could cause a false positive result on a urine test.
The poppy comes from the opium poppy, or Papaver somniferum for friends, which is grown for food but also for pharmaceutical purposes as the plant contains opiates. When harvested, the seeds can therefore be contaminated by the morphine and codeine contained in the plant.
AFP
After analyzing poppy seeds from different grocery stores, Rutgers University assistant professor of toxicology and forensic chemistry Michelle Carlin found that within the same bag, there can be differences in the amount of morphine, codeine, and thebaine contained in each seed . She explained this in an interview with the New York Times.
According to various studies, how many opiates are contained in a poppy seed depends in particular on the place of harvest and the effects of sun and water.
Most of the time, poppy seeds are cleaned before they hit our grocery stores to remove as many traces of opiates as possible.
Moral of the story: if you have a drug test in the next few days, avoid eating a poppy seed bagel.