Drug War Insanity: Woman's Child Taken Over Poppy Seed Salad

This story came out of Lawrence County, Pennsylvania. A woman had her son taken 3 days after giving birth for testing positive for heroin after eating a salad topped with poppy seeds. It took her 75 days to get her child back, during most crucial bonding period for a mother/parents. She is now suing the county.
I also wonder, what was the drug test for?

www.kmov.com...

This to me just highlights how the war on drugs is creating more harm than drug abuse itself. Drug companies use the same chemicals from these plants in their drugs, yet the plant itself is illegal? Does that make any sense? It isn't a war on drugs, it is a war on 'some' drugs, drugs that don't belong to pharmaceutical companies. You buy it from them, or you go to prison and have your family split up and raised by the state. Organized crime and it's worst.

If I may digress briefly, I would like to point out blatant lies and propaganda by our government. The federal gub'mint recently released a statement concerning medical marijuana saying it has no accepted medical value. This same gub'mint owns a medical marijuana patent for using cannibinoids as neuroprotectants and antioxidents , patent #6630507. www.patentstorm.us...

This government is criminal.

Originally posted by Merlin Lawndart

This government is criminal.

And that's the number one lesson this woman, her child, her family, friends and acquaintances, and anyone else aware of this incident should be taking to heart.

Learn it and know it.

yeah, they did come out saying that marijuana has no medical benefit. the FDA i think? anyhoo we've been waiting on that decision for like years now and now that they've ruled, the appeal process can begin. and it is in the appeal process where the volumes of scientific papers and studies showing through empirical science proof positive that marijuana has medical applications will finally be brought to light

on the other hand if you were in charge of the health of a baby that wasnt yours, and you had reasonable suspicion that baby may have been given heroin ..... no it just sounds ridiculous. maybe in afghanistan, but i really cant see that happening here.

Originally posted by Merlin Lawndart
I also wonder, what was the drug test for?

That is a darned good question.

Is it a matter of policy in some places to drug test expectant mothers?

reply to post by iNTERPLANETARyR.O.M.E.O.


Much agreed.

It sounds absolutely terrible for this woman, but didn't she ever watch Seinfeld? Could've stayed clear of this situation if she just did her research...

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Is it a matter of policy in some places to drug test expectant mothers?

It certainly is:

How it happened is actually rather straightforward: Jameson Hospital, located about an hour north of Pittsburgh, has a policy of drug testing all pregnant women in its care.

link

The real question is how many hospitals are doing this without consent to completely innocent people?

Been happening since at least 1989 apparently:

The justices sent the case back to a lower court to determine whether they actually agreed to the tests that began in 1989 and were suspended in 1993.

link

So now I have to ask if the SCOTUS shot this practice down why is it still happening?

Voting 6-3, the justices rejected arguments from the Medical University of South Carolina and Charleston city officials that drug tests are necessary to protect mothers and their fetuses from the damaging effects of crack coc aine.

It's so patently FALSE for those people to say that she "tested positive for heroin".

She tested positive for opiates which doesn't prove anything. It only indicates that her blood work needs to be examined further to determine what the source of the opiates was.

Because the source could be poppy seeds, morphine, codeine, or maybe heroin.

To take one stupid test and jump to some LEGAL conclusion is both UNSCIENTIFIC, and FALSE logic.

Originally posted by Merlin Lawndart
Drug companies use the same chemicals from these plants in their drugs, yet the plant itself is illegal? Does that make any sense?

Well, that's a tad misleading. Opium and Heroin are illegal, but so is codeine, morphine, hydrocodone, oxycodone, hydromorphone, oxymorphone, fentanyl, etc if you don't have a prescription.

It's not like they sell oxy in the corner store to whoever wants it, but then make heroin illegal. It's all illegal, unless you are prescribed. And considering the potential contamination of raw opium, or even highly refined heroin, it's not that surprising that it isn't used in the medical field.

But I'm getting away from the topic, and I personally feel all drugs should be legal, but people often times talk as if doctors push opiates on you, but then make everything else illegal. which isn't true as it's extremely difficult to get pharmaceutical narcotics like that.

As for the story, this is absolutely awful. I hope she wins her lawsuit and gets a huge settlement. Unfortunately that money will come from the tax payer, though. In a perfect world, the people who made the decision to take her kid would be the ones to pay off any money she wins in a settlement.

It's a commonly known fact that poppyseeds can give you a false positive for opiates, so to take her child without doing any further research is just flat out wrong. I hope those people loose their jobs.

reply to post by Merlin Lawndart


3 days after?


Any positives due to eating poppy seeds would be out of the system within 24 hours.'
Less than that even.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by Merlin Lawndart
I also wonder, what was the drug test for?

That is a darned good question.

Is it a matter of policy in some places to drug test expectant mothers?

I think it is. I know here in Florida some of my female friends have mentioned they test the baby automatically after birth. I wouldn't know since I do not have kids.


This poor woman! How ridiculous!

I mean if she had a history of heroin use i could see them testing the baby but for no real reason.

I know of one girl who is pregnant and DRINKING and taking roxy's. It pisses me off to no end. I said to a few co-workers I was going to call DCF on her and they said that was mean. I said what was mean was that she was getting drunk and taking pills WHILE pregnant. That kid doesn't deserve that at all. People like that make me sick and they get to keep their kids.

I worked at an Elementary School with kids who had varying exceptionalities and some were drug babies or had fetal alcohol syndrome. It is a heartbreaking thing to see knowing that child never had a single chance to live a normal life and it was all because of drugs and alcohol.

Please be careful, OP. Drug policy is pretty taboo here and tends draw the Banhammer and censors quickly. Many people here are against the past half-century of drugs laws but you just canNOT talk about it here.

reply to post by Merlin Lawndart


Because Morphine and Codeine occur naturally in the Poppie plant and the seeds often have traces to significant amounts of these substances sitting on the outside of each seed, they can make you score a false positive for opiates on a drug test if you ingest poppie seeds. Which is why she would have tested positive for heroin, because heroin is broken down into morphine by the liver. I'm sure it was just a standard drug test that tests for the presence of any metabolites associated with opiates, coc aine, marijuana, etc. But this shows a part of the agenda of the government, which is to disqualify completely competent parents of taking care of their own children, so they can be raised by the state and indoctrinate them however they please. Because parents, especially good parents, are a solid buffer between the child and the outside world and they in a sense are able to establish a foundation of values in their kid which go against what our government now stands for. It is much like trying to recreate the Nazi Youth of Nazi Germany, but instead of saying we want to indoctrinate your kids and institutionalize them by having them parented by the state, they point the finger at the parent saying they are unfit to parent for one false reason or another. Its all about creating a generation of people that will not question authority as well as having no self identity. Much like the communist countries of today where the reigning philosophy is the state before the individual and whatever is best for the greater good (the state).

Things like this happen from time to time,
Positive test results .test should have been retaken 24 hours later.
The hospital and probably CPS jumped the gun without giving the Mother the benifit of doubt

Dont eat poppy seeds on your salad and go into labor..

I didn't see this issue posted but may have accidently skipped over it.......

When I was in high school I took a medical tech class, in this class I was taught about the hypocratic oath (I think that's what its called. Every doctor or nurse is supposed to take this oath before they can he awarded any certifications or licensing to practice. In this oath is included a stated about doctor patient confidentiality, from what I remember at the time it was even supposed to protect patients who had admitted or were proven to have broken the law. It's basically its very similar to attourney/client privileges. If this oath has not been changed then any of these doctors and nerves involved should be at the front of the line for licensing to practice to be revoked. I'm almost certain that a breach of this oath is tantamount to traitorism in the medical field.

This oath also includes a statement that requires any license holder (med license) to provide care to victims or disease or injury (basically anything) without regard to insurance, debt, payment possibility, race, yada yada yada.

It's completely horrible that there are so many idiots out there that would take a child away from its mother or father because of drug use, whose to say that the opiates didn't come from the hospital itself, they are used as pain meds and immediately after birth and snip the mother will usually pass out and be given a large dose of pain meds, typically shouldn't be opiates but resident trainees may not pay enough attention. I've heard of mistakes like that many times before. Not only thay, but where is our government getting all this cash to steal and raise all these children. Last I checked they were supposed to be cutting spending. So when the government defaults will parents of stolen children be able to force the government to relinquish custody, probably not. Maybe they should leave the new parents alone and start responding thoroughly to legitimate child abuse cases. I hear all to often that children were found dead even after reports, permanently locked in cages, or literally beaten. Sickening government focusing of non violent offenders while giving the cold shoulder to known child abusers and violent offenders.

My friend just had a baby few weeks back, tested positive for whatever vicadan(sp?) Come up as. Its in her hospital/doc records the doc prescribed her these a week before when she fell and cracked her tailbone. Hospital called cps, they wouldnt let her baby come home for a week. Made her "start services" just to bring her baby home. She had a cesarian delivery and refused all pain meds except tylenol because she was scared they would keep her baby. Ouch!

I thought that poppyseed s were an excuse back in the day, before the good tests came out, and now they dont show up so you cant say you had a "poppyseed salad" to get out of a ua?

Also, they drugtest a woman at her first prenatal blood draw, then they test the placenta when baby is born. I think it gives quite the history on prenatal drug use, but im not sure.

reply to post by iNTERPLANETARyR.O.M.E.O.


DEA did it and they have always held this but who cares, they are DEA Agents not Doctors and their jobs are on the line if they start making plants plants again and not illegal contraband that can get you a life sentence!