U.S. Army Bans Delta-8 and Tells Soldiers Not to Eat Poppy Seeds, Either

If you’re an American soldier who enjoys a poppy seed bagel from time to time, you gotta stop. The U.S. Army has updated its drug policies, telling soldiers to steer clear of poppy seeds and that smoking delta-8, the federally legal but unregulated alternative to marijuana, is also a no-go.

The Army announced the changes in the rollout of its updated regulation 600-85, The Army Substance Abuse Program. As first spotted by Task & Purpose, one of the major changes is the banning of delta-8 products.

“Numerous synthetic THC substitutes are now available on the open market in many States. Synthetic cannabis such as Delta-8–THC and other THC substitutes are used in drugs such as ‘spice,’ which are so closely related in action to THC as to make it obvious that synthetic cannabis and THC substitutes will have the same potential for abuse as THC,” the new regulations said.

Traditional marijuana may be banned in half the country, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get high. A 2018 federal Farm Bill legalized CBD and hemp-derived products and, as a result, a lot of states that have harsh marijuana laws are also full of stores selling hemp-derived THC products that look and smell like weed but technically aren’t.

Stores that sell delta-8 flower, edibles, and oils are all over southern states that are home to most of the country’s military bases. The hemp-derived markets are largely unregulated and, in some cases, stores in states with marijuana bans are simply selling weed and calling it hemp. Most of the time, when a soldier smokes delta-8 they’re going to fail an Army-conducted drug test.

The Army has tested for, and punished, the use of delta-8 since 2001. The updating of the regulations here is just the official paperwork catching up policy. “The majority of [soldiers] have said, ‘The state says it’s legal, so I’m going to smoke it,’” Joseph Schoenbeck, a Military Police detective at Fort Knox told an Army publication in 2022. “Others are saying they just want to get out of the military, so they really don’t care.”

Another one of the changes in the regulations was a warning about foods with poppy seeds. In a replay of a classic Seinfeld plot, it turns out the delicious bagels and muffins will make you pop dirty on a drug test. “Soldiers are encouraged to avoid consuming foods containing poppy seeds, as newer seeds variety may contain elevated levels of codeine,” the regulations said.

“Although drug testing laboratories have implemented additional measures to distinguish poppy seeds ingestion from codeine misuse, Soldiers should make every effort to avoid these food products.”