Thank you, that bothered me. The implication is that it’s either a foreign substance or at least not always naturally present in the seeds, which of course it is.
Also, I rolled my eyes at “Poppy seeds are derived from the poppy plant” - I mean, no duh. That manages to be both obvious and unhelpfully non-specific because there are lots of different kinds of poppy plants, but the issue is that “breadseed poppy” and “opium poppy” are just different names for the same plant.
‘Tis true, you can get high from regular ol’ store-bought poppy seeds. They don’t contain opiates, but if they are not washed well, they do have a small amount on them. I’ve heard (certainly would never try this…) that if you empty several spice containers of them into a jug of water and shake up a bunch, and drink the water, you will experience an opium high (I read about a kid doing this will quite a bit more than “several” spice containers, and OD’d using this method, so do not try at home).
See above. They most certainly do. Not huge quantities, but enough to trigger the test, and in sufficient quantities can result in intoxication. If that’s the goal, poppy straw (the dried leftovers of the plant after the flowers are harvested for decorations) does the job much more effectively. umm, based on, well, unofficial experimentation. 
From what I’ve read, the opiates are not “in” the poppy seeds, but on them, contaminated from the poppy latex (that is, if they were rinsed very very well, there would be no opiates present).
Empirical pharmacology is like charity; it begins at home.
That would be incorrect. Opioids are found (in varying concentrations) in every part of the plant. The latex is the highest, but wash as you will, you can’t change nature.
The papaverum somniferum plant is actually really pretty, smooth pale green stems and leaves, and often beautiful purple flowers. In fact they grow all over the place here as decorative plants, and you’ll often find them either cut like they do in Afghanistan, or the heads gone. Tried a bit of the dried latex one time, tasted like ass, but boy did it knock me for a loop.
I grow them in my garden because they are pretty. And potent. But pretty. And if I ever need serious pain control, I know where to go. The doctor, of course. I go to the doctor.
The first, third and fourth are “normal” poppies growing in my garden, the others are the somniferum… honestly prettier.
For when willow bark just won’t get the job done!
The hook, you are the doc 
Poppy seed paste or apricot jam, thankyouverymuch, not blueberry or whatever that bottom layer is!
They’re the one they call docosc Feelgood…
Great, now I want poppy seed hamentaschen (it is almost Purim).
Seems like sillypants/clickbait. Yes, we cleared-critters know what poppy seeds are - and we maybe will skip those holy-waah-awesome poppy-whatevers from that Polish bakery down the street. A bagel here or there however isn’t going to mess anyone up, and if it did - a few months of (very frequent and very non-random) trips to what we call the “golden retriever” gets you back on track.
Blowing a test brings other tests that will show how serious your bagel addiction is. This is not a big deal unless you have a serious bagel problem. Or those polish things…
I live in a rural area, where there is a large field left fallow over the winter by the farmer. It’s alongside a main road.
In the springtime this field turns into a magnificent wildflower meadow, changing its complexion over the weeks, and at some point dominated by a display of poppies. This attracts large numbers of visitors.
Lots of sniggering disbelief and chuckles in the comments here but this has been standard practice for many years in drug rehabilitation facilities to ban poppy seed products coming in from bakeries.
The serious side is that people on parole have been sent back to jail having failed a drug test at rehab!
I’m sorry but this subject has triggered me having seen a close friend not survive a prison sentence because of this common error in the testing process.
Please take this as an emotionally charged reply to your post given many other dismissive jokes around pastries and cakes. Nothing personal.
As an analytical chemist what sort of tolerances or percentage of opioids would you suggest there need to be to differentiate between a recent poppy cake consumption or a recent heroin hit.
I don’t understand the science but I would presume that this either is or isn’t a slim margin of error.
This testing issue has been going on for at least 30 years from my experience.
If you’re getting too many false positives, then the easiest thing is to change what that threshold is for a positive.
So, if you’re saying 10 PPM is a positive, then setting it to 20 PPM will reduce your false positives.
It will ALSO probably increase your false negatives.
A better option is to look for a more specific target molecule, one that doesn’t show up for bagels but does for heroin. That may or may not be possible (I’d need to look). Or look for a ratio of two or more molecules that would be characteristic of “bagel” vs “drugs”
Assuming they are indistinguishable (exact same analytes in the exact same ratios), then it would be hard to determine based on concentration alone. Yesterdays bagel might be 10 PPM, and last weeks heroin bender also 10 PPM. In that case, you’d do more frequent sampling.
What is probably the optimal approach is to do simple testing for everyone, then bring out a more advanced techniques for “gray zone” cases.
