Enlisted can't say "Eh, I'm done, kthxbye" like Officers can. This will just give those that want out an easy path to discharge rather than the preventative warning it was supposed to be.
Is there something new about poppy seeds or drug tests that is making this happen? Back in the 90s this specific scenario -- claiming that a poppy see bagel made you pop positive on a drug test -- was listed in DoD drug testing manuals as an example of something impossible that a drug user would cite to try to explain a positive test result.
Poppy seeds are from opium poppies. There's a little bit of the plant's latex coating each seed. If you're feeling adventurous, go get the cheapest or most "natural" brand of poppy seeds you can find at the grocery store, a 4 or 8 oz package should probably be enough; shake them up with cold water in a Gatorade bottle for about 20 minutes, strain, and drink. (Or so I've heard.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6513924/
edit: typos
Poppy seed bagel has hardly any poppy seed in it, like maybe 1 or 2 % by weight? You would have to eat a lot of bagels. Perhaps eating something that is 50% or more poppy seed would be different?
Yeah, we were warned about this in 1989, when I went to go work in the basement of the Pentagon.
So people are finally hearing about this again after ... how many years?
I was often told (though I have no idea if it was entirely made up) that the drug tests that WADA/UKAD/whoever were administering to athletes would pick up poppy seeds as heroin. I expect those panels are considerably more comprehensive than an employment drug test though.
This is either true or an incredibly pervasive misconception.
It's true. The tests measure for very small amounts of poppy substance, which would reveal heroin use months ago or poppy seed bagels in the last few days.
I still don't quite get why recreational drugs like that are tested for in sports - surely heroin is about as far from performance enhancing as you can get