Kaitlin spent the first weeks of her newborn son’s life in a panic. The hospital where she gave birth in October 2022 had administered a routine drug test, and a nurse informed her the lab had confirmed the presence of opiates. Child welfare authorities opened an investigation.
Months later, after searching her home and interviewing her older child and ex-husband, the agency dropped its investigation, having found no evidence of abuse or neglect, or of drug use.
The amount of opiates that upended Kaitlin’s life — 18.4 nanograms of codeine per milliliter of urine, according to court documents — was so minuscule that if she were an Air Force pilot, she could have had 200 times more in her system and still have been cleared to fly.
There’s no consensus among labs on what level should confirm the presence of codeine in urine, said Larry Broussard, a toxicologist who wrote an academic journal article on “growing evidence” that poppy seeds in bagels and muffins provoke positive test results. (Kaitlin ate a bagel shortly before taking her drug test, according to court documents.) There’s more consensus for some other drugs, but labs still disagree on appropriate cutoff levels for common drugs such as THC (the compound in marijuana that creates a high) and meth, said Broussard.
I thought the standard test was 300ng/mL, and even that can give false positives if you’re a prolific enough poppy-seed eater.
Testing for less than 20ng/mL is begging for false positives to occur!
Testing for less than 20ng/mL is begging for false positives to occur!
I see business opportunities
There’s a fair number of common antidepressants that’ll pop for PCP.
And most ADHD meds will make you piss hot for amphetamines… Because ADHD meds are amphetamines.
Sort of correct, but modern drug tests can distinguish actual ADHD meds from methamphetamine reliably. When I got tested I let them know my dose and what medication and they didn’t have to adjust anything at all.
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