Why US military has been told to stop eating bagels

The Department of Defense (DoD) has warned service members to avoid foods with poppy seeds on them like bagels, muffins, and other baked goods.

Why? Because it could affect drug tests.

On 17 February, the DoD sent out a memo telling military departments, “consumption of poppy seed products could cause a codeine positive urinalysis result and undermine the Department’s ability to identify illicit drug use.”

Poppy plants produce opium which can be cross-contaminated onto poppy seeds, often used in cooking and baking.

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Although the memo acknowledged that “concerns with poppy seeds and drug testing are not new,” the DoD said, “recent data suggests certain poppy seeds varieties may have higher codeine contamination than previously reported.”

Service members are subject to random urinalysis testing as well as required drug testing.

Stories of people failing opium drug tests due to poppy seeds are not new.

Although it is unclear how many poppy seeds need to be eaten for an opioid drug test to turn up as a false positive, some studies suggest it is not the number of poppy seeds but the concentration levels.

Poppy seeds possess no opium content, rather they can become contaminated with levels of morphine or codeine due to their interaction with the poppy plant, which produces opium latex.

Opium latex is a milky white fluid that comes out of the poppy plant when cut. When poppy seeds are harvested, they can be cross-contaminated with this.

Most often, poppy seeds are washed to reduce this contamination.

But because recent data indicates certain poppy seed varieties may have higher contamination the DoD is recommending people just avoid the food, for now.

The upside is this means there may be more poppyseed bagels for civilians.

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