What would cause a false positive on urine tests for alcohol, do certain foods and sugars (i.e. sugar alcohol)

can certain foods, sugars or medical conditions contribute? can't food ferment?

The previous reply about poppy seeds has some truth. Poppy seeds actually will test you positive for opiates (morphine, herion, etc), since the seeds actually contain traces of morphine & codiene that are naturally occuring components of opium. Since alcohol is consumed at a greater volume that many other drugs it requires more of it to trigger a positive. The amount of alcohol in a sugar alcohol will probably be insufficient. Since most alcohols other than ethanol (grain alcohol) are generally poisonous in ED50 quantities (poisinous in the quantity that would be required to make you drunk) ethanol is generally the only alcohol that can cause a positive.

If you are being drug tested I would watch out for false positives for other drugs. Some OTC drugs will cross trigger positives. For example, Advil and Motrin can trigger false positives for THCs (marijuana.) Esctasy (also illegal, but not as often tested for directly) will often trigger "false" positives as d-amphetamine (technically Esctasy IS an amphetamine derivative a.k.a. phenylethylamine or PEA.) Other PEAs can trigger "false" positives (which include some prescriptions and some illegal drugs.) If you are taking Adderal (pure d-amphetamine) or Dexidrine (d-methamphetamine), you will trigger positive for amphetamines part of a standard NIDA-5 drug test.

Hope that helps.

poppy seeds