Rippon tests positive for opiates in TV experiment
PRESENTER ANGELA Rippon programme told how he was fired tested positive for opiates – after from his job at a power station eating poppy seeds in a loaf of after a routine drug test showed bread in the fourth series of Rip opiates in his system.
Off Britain: Food. He realised that the answer The 72-year-old’s unlikely test must be the poppy seed bread result picked up the presence of that he had eaten for his breakfast morphine, derived from opium, toast.
after she ate a loaf of poppy seed Rippon said: “I must say I never bread and a poppy seed bagel thought I’d find myself taking a over the course of three days. drugs test, let alone have it come The poppy seed experiment back positive.”
came after a contributor to the Rippon underwent a urine screening test herself as the show explained how drugs tests are becoming more common in work environments where employees drive, operate heavy machinery or where the job is a matter of public safety.
Consulting Queen Mary University toxicology expert, Professor Atholl Johnston, about her own result, Rippon said: “Does that mean that if I was taking a test as an employee, that my employers could say there’s a possibility, Rippon, that you’re a drug taker?”
Prof Johnston explained: “The amount of morphine in a poppy seed will vary quite considerably depending on when and where it was harvested. In fact when tests have been done there’s about a 600-fold variation in the amount of morphine in poppy seeds.”
The advice programme was broadcast yesterday.