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Trampy
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/02/02
Posts: 1230
Loc: Southwest U.S.
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Quote:
Codeine is converted to morphine in the brain. This of course will result in a positive result in a drug test for the opiates. It is not known whether or not the drugs heroin, morphine or codeine can be separately determined on a drug test. In other words it isn't likely that the drug tester can determine which of the three above drugs you have taken, he just knows you've taken one or more of them.
Not so! I really hate to see false information here ...
The above quotation might be true for the cheap drug screens used by many private employers but it's not true for drug testing by government agencies. Remember the "poppy seed defense" case? Well, it is DEFINITELY POSSIBLE to separately measure the blood concentrations of codeine and morphine and use the ratio to tell if it could have been due to poppy seeds. In fact, it's often REQUIRED. SAMSHA also raised the opiate screening level for a positive test to avoid all the problems with poppy seeds. The end result is that they raised the federal opiate cutoff level from 300 ng/ml to 2000 or 4000 ng/ml. So if you're in the military and the level is 4000 ng/ml, then you could take an ordinary 5/500 Vicodin every single day and not worry about testing positive for opiates. You could also take the same amount of Dilaudid. The math is not rocket science. You have a certain amount of drug that's distributed within a certain amount of fluids.
Also, no matter how high the opiate level is, every single positive test for opiates needs to be reviewed by a medical doctor if it's a federally mandated drug test. The reason for that is because of the case they lost when a a man was fired for opiate use because he had ingested poppy seeds. He won the case. That one loss made opiate testing more lax and also more complicated ... and expensive.
A private employer can decide not to hire someone beased on an inaccurate and cheap test, but the federal government is not allowed to be so cavalier.
They can tell if it's from poppy seeds by looking at the codeine-to-morphine ratio and the level of other metabolites.
Read all about it:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=300+ng%2Fml+poppy+seed+defense
Trampy
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Your mileage may vary ...
Edited by Melody (10/01/03 09:01 AM)
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wat853son
Member
Reged: 04/28/03
Posts: 150
Loc: USA
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From a very well respected drug-test lab:
Opiates/Poppy Seeds
Q: Can Poppy Seeds cause a positive Opiate result?
A: Yes, it is possible. Poppy seeds are harvested from the Opium Poppy (Papaver Somniferum). The seeds themselves contain little or no opiates, however, the sticky resin that surrounds the seeds in the pod contains high concentrations of Morphine and some Codeine. Depending on the thoroughness of the washing used to remove the resin, some of this coating remains on the seeds.
Morphine levels of up to about 4500 ng/mL are frequently seen after ingestions of food containing poppy seeds. This is especially true of foods containing poppy seed paste (e.g. strudel or other pastries). Codeine levels seen with poppy seeds are less than half that of morphine. If the measured Codeine level is more than half the Morphine level, the source of the positive result is most likely from Codeine use, not poppy seeds.
Since there are many foods that contain poppy seeds (muffins, cakes, pastries, salad dressings, cookies...) care must be taken when interpreting positive opiate results. The Morphine levels seen with poppy seeds cannot be easily differentiated from those seen in donors taking prescription Morphine or illicit drugs (Heroin, Morphine).
If heroin is suspected, analysis for 6-Acetylmorphine (6-AM) may be useful. This intermediate metabolite between Heroin and Morphine is present for a short time after use of Heroin. If found, it is conclusive that Heroin was used. The absence of 6-Acetylmorphine, however, does not prove that the donor did not take Heroin, since the half life of 6-AM is short.
Under the DOT program, the MRO must find objective evidence of Opiate abuse before reporting a positive Opiate. Without such evidence, the result is reported as Negative. The recent change of the DOT opiate threshold to 2000 ng/mL was due, in part, to concern about poppy seeds.
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