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I'm taking January off,

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and while I'm away, I have lined up
some brilliant guest videos to take over this channel.

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We start with Trace Dominguez, who is one of the most
enthusiastic and bouncy science communicators I know.

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His channel splits up big topics into small parts,

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from all of human history
to how we get to space.

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But today's video is a one-off.

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He's going to test an old myth and try to
fail a drug test on purpose.

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Trace, good luck.

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- It's weird to be this excited about
potentially failing a drug test.

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I should...

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should fail.

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- Hey there, poppets, Trace here.

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Every middle-schooler exploring the world
of drug myths for the first time

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has heard of the poppy seed defence.

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There were definitely rumours at my school

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that someone-someone-knew from the
big bad schools down in Lansing,

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had actually tricked a cop by eating
a bunch of poppy seeds

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before their drug test.

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And I always wondered, "Is this a thing?

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"Can I actually trick an opiate test

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"by eating seeds from poppy flowers?"

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So I'm going to eat a bunch and
take a drug test for science!

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The scientific name of the poppy
is papaver somniferum.

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The papaver species is native to Turkey,

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and it contains a milky sap that can be harvested
to make opium and its derivatives,

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morphine, codeine, oxycodone,
methadone, and heroin.

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The Game of Thrones Maesters called that sap,
"the milk of the poppy".

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And that's pretty apt.

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It's a milky latex fluid that grows in the
unripened seed pods of the flower

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and surrounds the poppy seeds...
which grew in opium!

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The seeds are usually washed and processed

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so that they can be safely put on
muffins, cakes, and breads.

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Sometimes some of the residue from the sap
can slip through

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and end up making you have quite the breakfast(!)

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And this is why sometimes you can accidentally
fail a drug test

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after having a poppy seed bagel.

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Because depending on where the seeds are from,

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how much processing they've had,

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and even how much rainfall they experienced
while they were growing,

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all of this can affect whether there's opium
on them at your favourite bagel shop.

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And if there is, you can get what's called
a false positive.

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False positives happen when
a test registers positive,

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even though the person didn't actually consume
the substance in question,

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leading to the poppy seed defence.

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Poppy seed defences did actually change how
we drug test for opiates.

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Because originally, the test would show positive

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if you had 300 nanograms per milliliter
in your urine,

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but in 1998, the US government raised the
limit by almost seven times

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to try and eliminate false positives.

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The thing is, I actually want one,
so I gotta go do my homework.

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Luckily for me, you can still get 300 nanogram
tests online.

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And so I ordered some on Amazon and they are...

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already here because I did this a while ago,
and that was totally fake.

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I think it's good to point out that these tests

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can't actually [doorbell]
tell the dosages of alkaloids...

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That doorbell was very convenient timing!

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I think it's good to point out that these
tests cannot tell the dosages

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of any of our alkaloids,
only the presence or not.

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But the ones I got on Amazon are specifically
at that 300 level.

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To make sure the cheapo drug tests are not
always false positive,

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I made an appointment to get a real drug test.

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Then I set up the camera,

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I grabbed some bagels from that local bagelry,

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I sliced 'em up,

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I toasted 'em, as is my preferred way to eat
bagels.

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I know you're not supposed to toast fresh
bagels,

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but it looks so cool on camera!

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And then I ate them two hours before I tested
myself,

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because you have to wait for them to metabolise
for the drug test guidelines.

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YouTube's content policies say that I can't
actually show you the urine part of this,

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so here's an approximation of what's happening.

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Here are the resulted tests...

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and I totally failed!

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I tested positive at home at
12 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours,

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but then negative at 48 hours.

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And of course I repeated the experiment and
tested positive again.

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So let's understand how this works.

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In the case of opiates,
there are two ways to detect

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if a human has consumed the drug,

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firstly, you can look for the drug itself
in your system,

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but you can also look for byproducts of the
body's metabolization

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of the psychoactive phenanthrene compounds
and alkaloids present in poppy milk.

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And when your body breaks those down,
you get all of these different things.

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And in fact, almost 7% of humans can't even
fully metabolise something like heroin.

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So they have to detect a completely different
chemical in the body.

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This is why drug testing is so important and
has to be so specific.

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Either way, these should be detectable in
your system for between 48 and 60 hours,

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according to the US Doping Agency.

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And it depends on how much you consume,
I would imagine,

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because your body only metabolises it at a
set rate.

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So now we know that I can get a false positive
at home

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with these tests that I bought on the internet.

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The question is, can I test positive for morphine
and other opiates,

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by going to a real lab out in the real world?

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And there's only one way to find out and that's
to go to my appointment.

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Unfortunately, the only appointment left at
the official lab was so early in the morning.

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Because of the two hour window to eat the
bagels and have them metabolise,

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I had to get up so early, buy them,

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and then I could head to the lab to get my
official test.

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Okay, here we go.

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I can't actually film in the lab
for obvious reasons,

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but I think you probably all know what's happening.

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I'm really excited to fail.
Is that weird?

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I think it's weird.

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At that point, I have to wait three to five
days to get my results.

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My report on my phone 'cause,
I know, classic 2020.

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Negative for cocaine, oxycodone, methadone...

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Opiates.

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Positive!

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Positive for opiates,
for codeine and for morphine!

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I did it.

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I failed a drug test!

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Both the at home and in-lab tests showed false
positives for poppy seeds,

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which means it can happen to anyone.

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A Maryland mom was rushed to the hospital
to give birth

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and she was told that she had
tested positive for opiates.

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The hospital took her baby
away from her for five days,

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but in reality, she had just eaten poppy seeds.

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And I've seen this go wrong in my own life
and in my own family,

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and maybe you have too.

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Drug testing is expensive and it's difficult.

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And failing one can be devastating,
especially if it's a false positive,

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which as we know can happen.

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It's a balancing act.

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If the threshold is too low,
we get those false positives,

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too high, and the test is basically useless.

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So now that we know we can get a false positive,
both at home and in the lab at 300 nanograms,

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what should we do about it?

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If you ever do have a false positive,
the first thing you should do

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now that you know how this works,
is get tested again,

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because it will metabolise out sooner

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because of the low dosages
that you're going to be consuming,

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if you've just eaten poppy seeds.

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Remember, I only false-positived for 36 hours.

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Or as backup, keep Instagramming
your breakfast choices,

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you know, 'cause then nobody is going to doubt
that you're eating

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'cause you're just, you know, posting it.

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Thanks for tuning in, I'm Trace
and I'll see you in the future.
Anyway, what do you think?

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Delicious(!) ...it's been here for so long.

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- Go check out Trace's channel!

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You could start with his series
on brain-computer interfaces

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or on humanity heading for the stars.

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I have no idea how he keeps his
energy levels that high all the time.

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Next week, we're headed to Australia

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to talk about satellites with someone
who reminds me a little bit of younger-me.