By Aarav Sapra
The Poppy Seed Bagel is a simple bagel coated in poppy seeds. It may seem harmless, but something wild about this bagel is that you could fail a drug test if you eat it. The idea sounds bizarre, but scientific studies have continued to support this case. It’s not the bagel that may be harmful by itself; it’s the poppy seeds. Poppy seeds are derived from the plant known as Papaver Somiferum in Latin and translate to “sleep-bringing,” which may hint that they contain opiates. Found in this plant are tiny traces of morphine–not enough for you to get high, but enough to fail a drug test. Poppy seeds themselves don’t necessarily contain opiates, but during harvesting season, the seeds can start to become contaminated with opiates that are included in the latex of the seed pod surrounding them.
Due to the sensitivity of drug tests, consuming certain poppy seed food products, like Poppy Seed Bagels, can lead to positive drug results for opiates. For instance, a Maryland Mother (Elizabeth Eden) told a reporter that she had consumed a poppy seed bagel on the same morning that she went into labor. Later that day, a doctor informed her that she tested positive for opiates. Another example was in 2010 when the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed a case on behalf of a woman who had her 3-day-old daughter carried out by officials for five days after she consumed a poppy seed bagel and failed a drug test. It was believed that the infirmary had used a brink considerably lower than what the federal administration demands for workplace drug testing, which is 300 nm, and also had failed to question the woman whether or not she had ingested anything that might have influenced the test results. The hospital and county eventually recompensed for $143,500 and agreed to change their policies.
While it may be true that a few poppy seeds won’t necessarily always result in a failed drug trial, it’s virtually unattainable to find a conclusive answer about how many poppy seeds are too excessive. The amount of morphine in poppy seeds can alter depending on how they were harvested and processed and what country they directly came from. Nevertheless, there may be hope for bagel enthusiasts; a British specialty foods company has started to develop a low-morphine poppy seed that will not appear on a drug test. However, until those become widely available, you may want to stick with sesame.
