She ate a poppy seed salad. Child services took her baby.

Yep. Drug screen popped for heroin. Happens all the time. You'd think they would have figured out a way around it by now in the screening.

But it's only the poor that have to take drug tests. So there's no incentive to not ruin their lives.

Fresh out of high school I got a job working in the same grocery store as my then girlfriend (now wife), i had to take a drug test to finish the hiring process. I stopped at the grocery store to grab the paperwork and as I walked past the bakery they had fresh poppy seed bagels, my absolute favorite. I grabbed one and then went the next morning for my drug test, failed for opiates.
- Should have said, yeah but they're your opioids.
  You should get bonus points for supporting the business drug dealing operation.
There is a way around it. Check again after 72h.
- How long does it take for normal opiates to pass through? Because if they're the same it doesn't really indicate that it was from Poppy seeds.
Plenty of jobs for non-poor have random drug testing as well, for instance some jobs that are DOT regulated in the US, like flight crew.
- You misunderstand. To the people making these decisions, flight crews are "the poor".
  We're all just filthy poors to them.

Ffs there was a Seinfeld episode on this issue. 30 years later and we have nothing better?!

Yep. Authorities have basically just refused to admit how unreliable drug tests are, no matter how many times it's proven
It's standard war on drugs tactics... They don't care how many people they hurt, gotta keep that _slave prisoner population up
- The drug war is and has always been primarily a class war.
There was a MythBusters episode too!

My dad had a story similar to this from when he worked at a bank. Someone brought in poppyseed muffins for the office, the same morning that the office got randomly selected for drug tests. The higher-ups were really confused when the entire office tested positive for opiates.

Someone knew there was a drug test and flooded the office with Poppy so they wouldn't get caught.
- That would be pretty genius/because even if they were positive for something else (not opiates) management would still be like "This whole batch of tests is totally scuffed, we can't use it."
- I remember at one place I worked the boss was really dead against the drug test and argued against them saying they were unnecessary since there was no evidence of drug taking.
  Guess who calmed down when it turned out management weren't required to take the tests. Yep. Fortunately his whole spiel did delay things about 4 days, so it was still beneficial to us.
- Galaxy brain move.
I also had a roommate fail to get a job over a poppyseed muffin.
- I do think it's kind of ridiculous that they apparently can't tell the difference between poppy seeds and heroin. Seriously they can't figure that out?

Why are they drug testing women during childbirth? What kind of fucked up shit is that?

Started to become common during the moral panic around drugs in the 80s and 90s here in the US. I don’t know how it’s legal but this country is very backwards.
- Pointing out that a person has taken an illegal drug at some point is one of the top dehumanization tools of conservatives. It is a very potent catalyst when combined with non-whiteness. It has a rich history going back at least to the nixon days.
They should - but only for medical reasons kept confidential. It's important info for the doctor for the health of the kid. But not the cops.
Honestly I think it would be helpful to know if the baby might go into withdrawal but the positive test would be more of a flag to do a few rounds of neonatal abstinence scoring at set intervals after birth. I don't see why you'd need to call CPS if the baby doesn't significantly withdraw, since that's the actual harm that would be done to the baby. If their NAS values are negligible obviously either the test was a false positive or mom wasn't doing enough to actually put the baby at risk.
- In some states, testing and then notifying CPS of positives is required by law. The healthcare staff hate it as much as the patients, because it does more harm than good.

When I was a teenager, I found out that some of the packs of poppy seeds at grocery stores had seeds that were shinier and oilier than the other grey/blue/dusty ones. And they sat in clumps, not loose seeds. Turns out there was a lot of opium on those.

Good times were had, for about 2 weeks, followed by ~10 years of bad times.

Drug testing all pregnant women sounds so f*** up.

According to this LA Times article, they weren't testing everyone; they tested this woman because she skipped her prenatal visits. She did that because she lived with people who were at high risk from COVID-19. It also says she provided a urine sample voluntarily, but wasn't told it was for drug testing.
It does seem reasonable to me that if a hospital had good reason to believe a woman was using opioids while pregnant, they would get child protective services involved. It does not seem to me that missing some appointments with as good an explanation as she gave here should be grounds to perform a drug test without the patient's consent. Child protective services also shouldn't be relying on a test with such poor specificity.
- Sure, I believe society muat tke care of risky cases, probably tgis woman got really unlucky.
There have even been cases where they have given women pain meds before the test, then called CPS when she tested positive for those same pain meds.
Anything to punish pregnant women.
- More reason for women to avoid getting pregnant all together.
- Probably she got unlucky, but the situation gives a bit of Handmade's tale vibe.

Pregnant people don't have the same rights as everybody else and it's not just abortion. Reactionaries need to control what they don't understand and absurdity is inevitable outcome.

just stop having kids
problems all over resolved
- That's exactly what's happening. Birthrate dropping everywhere.

America's fixation on drugs is beyond psychotic. God forbid someone actually enjoys their shitty life a little bit. When does congress get its random drug tests? Oh, that's right, the rules don't apply there...

Just got a box of poppy seed almond muffins from Costco. Guess my whole family, kids included, would test positive for both heroin and cyanide.

Why are they drug testing in the first place? Wtf?

Because if a pregnant woman is on something chemically addictive, the baby is too, and that’s important to know when delivering a baby.
- And you think this is normal? This is police state shit. I'm so glad I don't live in that horrible country.
- OP might like to shit talk the US and try to find topics specifically to do so. But they are not wrong here.
  You ought to understand liberal democracies don't just routinely drug test their population without consent or at least clear indication of a crime and following a court order. There was a time where the US at least aspired to be in the liberal democracies club. That you guys defend this practice even on a left-leaning platform such as lemmy is seriously frightening.

Anyone who listened to the 50 minute podcast can tell us whether she fought the decision and what the outcome was? Written article had no closure. Must have closure!

Absolutely horrible but they should absolutely warn people about foods that can make them false positive before any drug tests.

Or maybe we should stop drug testing people and exit the fascist fucking police state.
She had a salad, an “everything” salad. Poppy seeds are just a minor everyday ingredient and it would to just not even think of them. Even knowing. Even being warned.
Warning is not enough.

This is literally a bit in Seinfeld, except its a bagel and Elaine doesn’t get to go on her work trip. Guess our collective memory is very very very short.

WTF is a poppy seed salad?

I'm guessing a salad with poppy seeds sprinkled on it.
- I'm guessing poppy seeds with salad sprinkled on top.
Then she ate a salad from Costco: an “everything” chopped salad kit with poppy seeds.
It’s probably in the dressing. Weird to call it poppy seed salad though.
- That's what I'm saying.
"It's a dangerous drug": child services, probably
Basically heroine
A salad with poppy seeds in or on it. Like so.

If it's how it's being made out, I'm seriously concerned. However, it's different if she was already on the CP radar for drug use, and her taking the baby home depended on her providing clean tests. The child needs to come first

No, even if there was an existing agreement. You can't have your kids taken away for eating healthy food.
Drug addicts don't have less rights than the rest of us.
Eating a salad isn't the same as endangering your child even if the test can't tell the difference.
- If she's already been found to be a risk to her child due to substance misuse issues and she's failed a drug test, then the child should be taken. Further analysis can be done on the sample, but in the short term the newborn needs to be safeguarded. Babies under a year are particularly at risk of death from CP issues, and the child's needs come first.
This was my first thought. It's sticky because unfortunately for her this is the type of thing an opiate addict would lie about.
- Yep exactly. It may be a fuck up by CPS but it may be that she's already flagged as a risk so they've put the child first.
As long as CPS doesn't leave the baby to die in a hot car in the sun.

There was a guy who was jailed at Dubai Airport because he had eaten a poppy-seed bagel at Heathrow some 8 hours earlier.

How does that even happen? They do drug tests in airports now?

Meanwhile foster services took a baby away from a good family I know who wanted to adopt it. They gave it back to the drug addicted mother. A month later the mother ended up strung out and back in jail, and they wanted the foster family to take the baby in again.

I suspect the poppy seed story is an outlier.

addiction in the family is a no win scenario. such difficult times for all of you, sorry. some people really do get clean but addiction is a chronic condition
Cool anecdote.

Honestly at this point we should stop offering Poppy seeds in normal goods.

Honestly at this point we should stop ~~offering Poppy seeds in normal goods.~~ drug testing people in most cases.
It just reenforces the notion that drug use is a moral failing.
From a non-American: the crazy bit seems to be routinely drug testing mothers giving birth, not letting people eat salads with poppy seeds. And then sharing the drug test result with other authorities. Is it just another American ruse to oppress women, especially poor women? Other countries don't do this.
No. That's the wrong change.
Honestly at this point we should stop using drug tests we know to be extremely faulty to dictate people's lives.
agreed... it consistently has caused problems in drug tests. as long as drug tests are viable for any population, poppy seeds are a nuisance. does it really even add to the flavour of anything?
- I love the flavor. Poppy seed cake has been my favorite since I was a kid. My mom used to make it for my birthday every year.
- What? Eat a poppy seed muffin and come back. That shit is delicious.

Child Services took "her" baby? I think you mean "OUR" baby. If you think "your" children don't belong to the state, you haven't been paying attention. Edit: I had kids. Maybe we shouldn't be taking people's kids all willy nilly.