How many poppy seeds are there in one flower?
(Colin Stark)
Did you know that eating manna ears or a bagel with poppy seeds could fail you in a drug test?
According to VICE's report, the last enemy that threatens US soldiers is the poppy, - this is according to a memo sent by a senior Pentagon official.
In a letter sent to the soldiers during the month of February, Gilbert Cisneros Jr., the Undersecretary of Defense for Manpower and Readiness, warned of the potential failure of the tests Drugging Soldiers Who Consume Too Much Poppy Seeds - Because some strains can contain detectable amounts of morphine and codeine due to their farming methods, it turns out
that baking with poppy seeds can lead to soldiers failing drug tests with "codeine positive urine test" results, which the Pentagon says is harmful In "ability of the department to detect the use of prohibited drugs".
The Pentagon official ordered the soldiers to completely refrain from eating any product with poppy seeds until further notice and further research by the Pentagon will be done to solve the problem.
"As a precautionary measure, I find that for the purpose of protecting the service members and the integrity of the drug testing program, a warning should be issued to avoid poppy seeds," he wrote, "I hereby instruct the military departments to inform the soldiers to avoid consuming any poppy seeds - including food and bakery products containing poppy seeds." .
More on the same topic
Even though it's not chocolate: you won't believe what's hidden behind the poppy that fills Haman's ears
To the full article
How many ears of manna will make you crazy? (Photo: Nimrod Saunders)
But does eating poppy seeds really affect drug test results?
An expert in addiction and pain medicine, Dr. Gary Ricefield, explained to the iflscience website what affects the opiate content of poppy seeds and how they can affect drug tests. What are poppy seeds? Poppy seeds come from a species of poppy
plant
called the opium poppy, cultivated poppy or anesthetic poppy (The Latin name Papaver somniferum means "bringing sleep") which suggests it may contain opiates - powerful compounds that depress the central nervous system and can cause drowsiness and sleep. There are two main uses for the opium poppy - it is the source of the opiates used in painkillers, the most active being morphine and
codeine Its seeds are also used for cooking and baking.
The poppy seeds themselves do not contain opiates, but during harvesting the seeds can become contaminated with opiates contained in the milky latex of the seed pod that covers them.
Most of the opioid substances extracted from the anesthetic poppy are a product of the distillation of the sticky resin contained in it.
Commercial production of the resin is not carried out by draining the stems, but by injuring the unripe pick, which before ripening contains large amounts of resin.
Smaller amounts of opioid substances are present in the seeds and leaves.
There are genetically modified opium poppies that do not produce morphine or codeine and others that do not produce opium resin at all.
Field of poppies (photo: Government Press Office, field, blossom, flower, poppy, Jerusalem mountains, spring, nature, landscape)
Is it possible to lose weight from eating poppy seeds?
Practically speaking, it is not possible to eat such an amount of poppy seeds that it will drug you and make you constipated.
Furthermore, their processing dramatically reduces the opiate content in them - for example, by washing or cooking or baking the seeds.
Do poppy seeds affect drug tests?
The expert explains that while there aren't enough opiates in poppy seeds to get you high, because drug tests are incredibly sensitive, consuming certain foods with poppy seeds can lead to positive urine drug test results for opiates—especially for morphine, codeine, or both.
Under most circumstances, urine concentrations of opiates are too low to produce a positive test result, but certain foods—and it's usually impossible to tell which ones because opiate content is not listed on food labels—contain enough opiates to cause positive test results.
Moreover, because of overlapping opiate concentrations and morphine-to-codeine ratios, it can sometimes be challenging to distinguish test results resulting from poppy seed consumption and those resulting from the use of opiate medications.
He explains that this is not a problem with most workplace drug tests - which are conducted by a specially trained doctor called a medical review officer.
Unless the doctor finds evidence of illicit opiate use—such as needle marks or signs of opiate poisoning or withdrawal, even relatively high concentrations of opiates in the urine that yield positive test results are usually classified as negative.
However, it turns out that drug testing in the military is different, and poppy seeds do pose a potential problem.
One such problem, as highlighted in recent reports, concerns service personnel who test positive for codeine and choose a "line of defense of poppy seed use."
They are still considered to have taken codeine, sometimes suffering serious consequences - such as disciplinary action or discharge from the service.
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