From: Jay Mann <mannj@southern.co.nz>
Newsgroups: sci.bio.food-science
Subject: Re: Poppy seeds = Drug use?
Date: 15 Mar 1998 20:22:44 GMT
User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980202 (UNIX) (SunOS/5.4 (sun4m))

Phoebus <phoebus@NOSPAMtornado.be> wrote:
: In article <19980312144200.JAA10191@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
: jkfabian@aol.com (JKFabian) wrote:
:> Can eating food with popppy seeds (bagels, muffins, etc.) really cause someone
:> to fail a routine corporate drug test?

: The active substance is extracted from the flower pod not the seeds.
: So one should be safe when eating the seeds. I never felt anything from
: eating poppyseed (we call it "moon seed")
[snipped]

We analysed poppy seeds for opium alkaloids.  There were none detectable by
paper chromatography but they were detectable by glc.  I suspect that the
seeds don't have any alkaloids but there may be a slight surface
contamination with dried latex from the pods.

Incidentally, the seeds, which had been purchased from a restaurant supply
shop, germinated quite easily and produced genuine opium poppy plants. Down
here, poppy seeds are a by-product of the entirely legal and well regulated
drug extraction industry of Tasmania.  I had expected that the seeds would
have been heat-treated, but perhaps one lot got through.

Jay D Mann  <mannj@southern.co.nz>
Christchurch, New Zealand