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.
I was listening to a podcast today or yesterday talking about huge recruiting shortfalls in 3 of 4 military branches in the US. The biggest factor was that the available pool of recruits are 75% ineligible for a variety of reasons, but the biggest factor is past/current drug use. The most common drug: cannabis. Even if someone has used it only once, even if they just tried it, they are ineligible for military service.
It seems pretty foolish, in the biggest recruitment shortfall in American history, to discount your largest possible pool of recruits just because they might’ve smoked a doobie once.
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
So as someone who’s in his mid 20s and chops more grass than a lawnmower, what kind of experience would I have trying to enlist?
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 :/
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”
Nevermind Montana admiral we need you in DC.
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.
No clue, I was there from '02-'05, sounds like I may have been there while you were there.
We may have been friends. I was that guy that did that thing that one time.
Also confirmed, signed a waiver and still went to a top secret A-school.
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I hope every employer that continues enforcing thc testing in the workplace collaspes. Many of them are already on the brink. I just want to have a normal life and still get to smoke weed sometimes. All I know is that I will continue working towards that goal until I succeed, deal with it.
How would they know though? I know it stays in your system for a couple of weeks but not for months or years so you could just lie on the application form.