Can Eating Poppy Seeds Make You Fail a Drug Test?

Published on Thursday, October 28, 2010, by Roxanne Webber / Edit Post

The poppy seeds on your bagel come from the plant Papaver somniferum, the same one that produces opiate drugs like morphine and heroin. The notion that eating a poppy-seed bagel might get you branded as a smack addict seems like urban legend. But "it's not a myth at all," explains Cynthia Whiteman, a senior analyst at Norchem, a forensic drug-testing laboratory in Arizona. "Every part of the plant does have morphine. The seeds have a very small amount but still will get positive results [on a drug test]."

In fact, poppy-seed-related positives are such a legitimate concern that the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration actually increased the positive reading threshold for opiate drug tests from 300 nanograms (ng) per milliliter of urine to 2,000 nanograms per milliliter in 1998 (for government workplace drug tests) to lessen the risk of false positives.

It's hard to say exactly how many poppy seeds you would have to eat to test positive, since factors like body weight vary from person to person. But according to a 1998 study published in the Forensic Science International journal, eating two poppy-seed rolls with an average of about .76 grams of seeds each caused positive test results for up to six hours in one individual, ranging from 47.9 ng/ml to 832 ng/ml, depending on how long it had been since ingestion. And poppy-seed cake? The same study found that eating a slice (which contained an average of 4.69 grams of seeds) caused all four subjects to screen positive for up to 24 hours—four times as long as the rolls—citing one individual's results ranging between 83.8 ng/ml and 302.1 ng/ml.

But don't relax and binge on poppy-seed muffins: "Different testing agencies require different levels of certification," says Whiteman, noting that some even have zero-tolerance policies. The choice of cutoff is the client's, she says, and many choose the lower government option of 300 ng/ml, such as all of Norchem's clients that test people on probation in Texas. So, to be safe, if you need to take a drug test—in Texas or elsewhere—skip the poppy seeds.

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  • We got a positive using a cheapy dipstick test. It took a lot of poppy seeds (she ate them out of the jar) and a couple hours to show up.

  • If its one of those do-it-yourself pee in the cup and put the stick in it jobs, a couple of poppy bagels won't do it. But if you're in the Federal system where they use the lasers and an expensive lab, lay off anything with poppy's until your PO gives you the graduation letter. That's what I heard.

  • My husband is a chemist in a hospital lab that does blood chemistry testing including drug screening. He said that about 15 years ago this was put to rest by technology advances that allowed the instrumentation to differentiate between culinary poppy seeds and ones processed as opiates. Some labs still use old equipment still that isn't as sensitive, but if someone is a habitual user it will show...+READ

    My husband is a chemist in a hospital lab that does blood chemistry testing including drug screening. He said that about 15 years ago this was put to rest by technology advances that allowed the instrumentation to differentiate between culinary poppy seeds and ones processed as opiates. Some labs still use old equipment still that isn't as sensitive, but if someone is a habitual user it will show up as a strong positive. The technicians should know that a mild positive result is almost always from something dietary. A lot of the places using older equipment will send all positive results to another lab to get a confirmation of the result, or they have another instrument that is more sensitive that they will run it on. They don't use it routinely because it's more expensive per test.

    So the short answer is yes, eating poppy seeds can result in a positive result. It depends on how much you eat, how frequently and consistently you eat them, and the instrumentation used to do the testing.-COLLAPSE

  • yes it will show up in a UA as a opiate in situ

  • What I remember on "Seinfeld", Elaine failed (or was afraid she would) her drug test because she ate a poppyseed bagel every morning. Hilarity ensued! It really was funny.

  • I recall at one Olympic Games someone testing positive after eating two slices of health bread with poppy seeds. The explanation was accepted.

  • It would have to be something with a lot of the seed, or eaten very frequently. If I had to do testing, I would avoid anything with poppyseed filling in it, generally speaking. Thats a LOT of poppyseed. Never saw the appeal in it. I think it tastes like lawn clippings, personally.

  • I thought that Mythbusters concluded that you'd have to eat A WHOLE LOT OF BAGELS for the poppy seeds to have any affect. Busted.

  • My friend was a driver for a NY newpaper when he failed a pee test due to his daily poppyseed roll and coffee. For 3 months, he was on unpaid leave, until his union had an independant lab re-do it and it was determined that thepoppyseeds were the likely suspect. This guy NEVER even took a toke of weed in his life so this was extremely traumatic for him. He was reinstated and given back pay, but...+READ

    My friend was a driver for a NY newpaper when he failed a pee test due to his daily poppyseed roll and coffee. For 3 months, he was on unpaid leave, until his union had an independant lab re-do it and it was determined that thepoppyseeds were the likely suspect. This guy NEVER even took a toke of weed in his life so this was extremely traumatic for him. He was reinstated and given back pay, but what a bummer for him!! Hopefully, 20 years later they can decypher the difference.-COLLAPSE

  • Meanwhile, the correlation between drug usage and job performance has never been established, and companies continue drug tests as a PR move rather than as an effective corporate strategy.

  • I failed from eating my favorite salad dressing every night- Poppyseed and Carmelized Onion salad dressing on a dinner salad each night when trying to lose weight. It took a while to figure out what the heck had gone wrong since I knew I hadn't done anything wrong, then it turned out to be my love of that darned dressing! When we went over what could've happened, I was told it was positive, but...+READ

    I failed from eating my favorite salad dressing every night- Poppyseed and Carmelized Onion salad dressing on a dinner salad each night when trying to lose weight. It took a while to figure out what the heck had gone wrong since I knew I hadn't done anything wrong, then it turned out to be my love of that darned dressing! When we went over what could've happened, I was told it was positive, but just barely over the positive line which was unusual since those who've taken morphine usually place higher than that, so it'd made sense once we discussed foods. Even when I thought of poppyseed muffins, I still didn't think of my salad dressing!-COLLAPSE

  • As an HR Manager, I've had employees claim the poppy seeds caused them to fail a drug test. While I understand that they come from the Opium family, the problem is that only marijuana users, in my opinion, try this excuse. They assume "drugs is drugs" and we aren't told what drug came back as positive.

  • can't anyone remember it was on Seinfeld?

  • I remember Mythbusters testing this a while back - Haven't had poppy seeds since.