Blood Drug Testing

What can cause a drug test to come back positive?

I just found out that I failed a pre-employment drug test. I have never done drugs. Also I was not told what the test came back positive for. I don't take any prescriptions besides my birth control. How can this be? I was not given any warning about anything that could cause a false positive. I was not told anything about the drug test at all. The only thing I can think of that I may have taken is nightime cold medicine or sleeping pills. Or ate spices or seseme seeds on italian bread. None of these were that close to the test either.

Public Comments

1. a mix up at the lab. certain over the counter cold medicines. ask for another test.
2. Poppy seeds will produce a weak positive for opium. I'm not sure about anything else.. do you take any herbal or dietary supplements? This could be also be the culprit. I can't believe they won't discuss your results with you, though. Most places will give you fair warning about some things that may give false positives though - they didn't do that with you?
3. eat anything with poppy seeds? opium is made from poppy seeds and that could throw the test off
4. OOOOPPPS. Night time cold meds contain benedryl. Benedryl will give a false positive for some tranquilizers.
5. The only adverse result that food can cause that I know of is poppy seeds. But they have to be taking in LARGE quantities in order to affect the tests. The tests are extremely accurate and during testing they verify the positives multiple times to eliminate user error and false positives. If your test came back positive.... either you smoked up or someone switched your pee. You may want to look into this further including getting the lab's phone number and speaking directly with them about the situation. I smell lawsuit! BTW i know a lawyer.. j/k