“They had a singular piece of evidence that I had taken something, and it was wrong.”

Susan Horton had been a stay-at-home mom for almost 20 years, and now—pregnant with her fifth child—she felt a hard-won confidence in herself as a mother.

Then she ate a salad from Costco.

Horton didn’t realize that she would be drug-tested before her child’s birth. Or that the poppy seeds in her salad could trigger a positive result on a urine drug screen, the quick test that hospitals often use to check pregnant patients for illicit drugs. Many common foods and medications—from antacids to blood pressure and cold medicines—can prompt erroneous results.

If Horton had been tested under different circumstances—for example, if she was a government employee and required to be tested as part of her job—she would have been entitled to a more advanced test and to a review from a specially trained doctor to confirm the initial result.

  • ZapBeebz_@lemmy.world
    0·
    4 months ago

    Even if someone has used it only once, even if they just tried it, they are ineligible for military service.

    Well that’s just false. You’ll get denied if you pop hot on a drug test at MEPS, but they don’t tend to care if you’ve smoked in the past, except as a barometer for if you’ll smoke in the future. And, like almost everything else in the DoD, there’s a waiver form you can fill out for it too

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
      0·
      4 months ago

      Can confirm. I signed said waiver. I told them that yeah, I smoke weed, but if my job requires me to be clean, I’m clean. Except Adderall. They gave me 30 days to get clean, sent me to MEPS and made me a Nuke. Then nuke school wouldn’t let me leave and they made me an officer and an instructor.

      I joined the Navy to see the world, ffs. I’d already seen South Carolina :/

      • CptEnder@lemmy.world
        0·
        4 months ago

        Lmao I’m picturing a series of comedic events like guy enlists to quietly do his service and sail the world, but keeps getting promoted and sent to the most boring places.

        “Congrats Chief, were sending you to West Virginia”

        “Congrats LT, we’re sending you to South Carolina”

        “Congrats Commander, we’re transferring you to… Montana”

      • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
        0·
        4 months ago

        I left as ET2 and 90% of my time was at prototype in Ballston Spa as an instructor. I went on one short tour and we saw the Persian Gulf.

        Y’all still got a gator that hangs out down there? Are the students still headed to that shitty dive bar that didn’t used to check IDs? I’m genuinely curious because I haven’t been there in over 20 years, but I heard the shitty dive actually checks IDs now.