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 think if I had gone as soon as I ate the bagel I would have been fine. But since I waited until the next day it had time to get into my system.
You never know what they’re looking for. I guess they weren’t too concerned about marijuana for the job I was after. I don’t work for them anymore, but it did start my career track. I’ve never been asked to pass a drug test since.
Only place ive ever worked where it was a thing was a corporate cooking gig. (Ski Co in aspen)
First week, the chef asked who could pass a drug test. Only 2 of the old el salvadorians raised their hands. They went to the employee training seminar, where random drug tests were applied. Everyone else in the kitchen was exempted as ‘mission critical.’
We kept one of those box vapes in the walk-in fridge, the kind with the wooden box you put weed into the end of the hose, and touch it to the glass heating element to use.
At one point chef was doing a walk through with someone from corporate, who saw it there, and asked what it was. With a straight face, chef told him it was a dehydrator, ‘for rapidly dehydrating small amounts of herbs.’ The guy looked really impressed and they continued the tour. It took me a solid 5 minutes to stop laughing and get on with my inventory.