Failed UA, Hopefully I can exlain it away Options

[dusteddisgusted]

So SWIM is on house arrest with weekly UA's. SWIM partakes in PT once a week, right after his UA. Well, he told me his last UA came up positive for morphine. His PO knows he has a script for hydrocodone as well as for APAP w/ codeine. SWIM told me he didn't use anything for three days before his UA, drank a lot of water before hand, and drank creatine as well as b vitamins beforehand. SWIM actually saw the report from the lab. He noticed that his creatine looked about half of normal, but the thing that got his goat was that the lab "confirmed" the results by TLC. For those that don't know, TLC (thin layer chromatography) is not a reliable method to determine the identity of an unknown compound. SWIM's PO called the lab and they confirmed that positive for M may be due to codeine (w/o SWIM asking). SWIM is assuming they will perform GCMS.

Mostly this is a rant that SWIM wanted me to write for him, but SWIM was also thinking that GCMS will turn up other alkaloids such as thebaine. SWIM was thinking that this would support his alternate defense of poppyseed consumption. SWIM thinks the lab must have a low threshold for opiates, as he did have a few days clean and diluted a bunch. Anyone have any thoughts? Should SWIM prepare for jail? Any sympathy? (j/k)

[SofaGeorge]

Many years ago I was a counselor working in a couple work release facilities. I'm not kidding when i say I probably gave 2,000+ UAs. The bottom line is that if you fail a UA... you fail by a mile. People think that a UA simply tests for a presence of a substance. That is just the half of it. They also test for "level." I can't give the actual numbers... but it used to work like this. If your test came back positive for THC (pot) they didn't just look at the positive test... they also looked at what level of THC the test caught. If you tested a 60 on THC... and the cut off was 100... you were considered a "negative" even though you had a positive test for THC. You simply didn't have enough to hit the 100 mark and be over the limit. The military had a really high level on their THC count... something rediculous like 160... which meant that you had basically just burned two joints before peeing in the cup. the way it was explained to me was that the military had to go with such a high amount because otherwise too many people would fail the test.

This is why the "oh I ate poppy seed bagels" line doesn't work. You aren't just testing positive for morphine. You are testing high enough for morphine to have confirmed amounts that could not be caused by a bagel. A poppy seed bagel may give you a positive morphine read... but if your number is 15... and cut off is 100... and you test 150... there is no way in hell you got a 150 morphine read off a bagel.

It isn't just a positive test... it is the level variance that nails you.