Dear Answer Girl,
I’ve been wondering, if someone donates blood after doing drugs, could it cause the blood recipient to fail a drug test? They wouldn’t get high from the drugs in the donor’s blood would they?
-Too much time on my handsThe only way that it would really be feasible for someone to get high from a blood transfusion (assuming it was through drug-tainted blood) is if the drug user injected or inhaled the drug and then almost immediately donated the blood.
Other than the drug party that went on last month right before the blood mobile came to ETSU, I’ve never really heard of anyone doing that. (Just kidding about the drug party.)
It just doesn’t seem like it would be something that anyone would want to do. I mean, so you pay all this money or kill the right people or fix up some kind of theft or somehow get your hands on your drugs and then, instead of getting high, you go donate your blood because the thought of some unsuspecting surgery patient receiving your blood and getting high instead is much more satisfying?
No, probably not. That’s really kind of sick.
But see, there’s not so much worry in the blood ever making it that far, because the blood people do all kinds of tests on the blood.
By the way, the reason they don’t let you donate blood if you’ve ever done drugs is not so much that they are scared you’ll have traces of the drug in your bloodstream, rather, it is because people who use drugs are at a higher-than-average risk of having contracted other diseases due to the often-accompanying risky lifestyle.
So anyway, back to the original thing. The confusion, I think, is based on a misconception about what happens after drugs are taken. The drugs don’t linger around in the bloodstream for a long time at all.
OK, so drugs are smoked, snorted, injected or whatever. Then, they make their way into the bloodstream. Check.
This is not what makes you high. The bloodstream carries the chemicals/drugs to other places in the body (organs, tissues, the brain, etc.). The chemicals bind to stuff in the bloodstream and when they get to the right exit, they get off the interstate.
In the brain, the chemicals make contact with receptors on the neurons (those funny looking brain cells), and then the reaction begins, resulting in the various “high” effects, depending on the drug.
So, in short, there wouldn’t be enough chemicals left in the bloodstream to get a blood recipient high (or to make them fail a drug test) for very long. The length of time, of course, depends on the chemical composition of the drug, how it is taken and the speed of an individual’s metabolism of it.
And finally, since blood is not just bagged and delivered directly from the site of the blood mobile or donation center to the surgery room (it is actually tested for things and often separated into its different components – red cells, plasma, etc. – for distribution) the chances of someone getting high from a high person’s blood drops to near zero.
I hope that’s not too much of a disappointment to anyone.

Dear Answer Girl,
Aren’t you graduating this semester? What’s going to happen to your column next year?
Concerned AG faithful

Ah, great question. Yes, I am a proud member of the class of 2004, and I’ll be walking on Saturday. Look for me. My face looks just about exactly like my Answer Girl logo.
But as far as the column … who knows. We’re actually currently enmeshed in a high-profile but extremely top secret legal battle about my desire to syndicate my column. Lots of publications nationwide have been writing in about it, but so far, we’re gridlocked, so to speak.
Alas, I’ve also been begging to be able to stay on campus, live in the dorms and just write Answer Girl columns next year. They said the best they could do would be a two-month contract, and I just don’t think that is secure enough for me.
Maybe a new Answer Girl will surface. Maybe there will just be a blank space in the lifestyles section as a tribute to the Answer Girl. You know, sort of a do-it-yourself column. That way everyone can be the Answer Girl.
But realistically, by next semester, 75 percent of the people on campus will be new students or transfers, as usual, and no one will even know that it is gone.
What a sad thought. I cried a little tear just thinking about it.
Wait, I just got an idea. Continue to email me your questions, and I’ll write in letters to the editor that are cleverly disguised but still highly helpful Answer Girl-type remarks in response.
Or maybe I’ll start a web site and take Answer Girl to the global community. I’ll keep you posted.
But anyway, thanks to everyone who read the column, hated the column and complained to everyone (Hey, you still read it, didn’t you? Ha ha ha.), loved the column and promised to yourself that you’d write in but never did, read the column and wrote a question or two of your own, or didn’t bother to read the column but still felt the need to write in a highly irrelevant question anyway.
Yeah, I’m talking to you.
Also, a great big thanks to the professor who will remain nameless to protect his reputation, but who wrote a very nice letter to the editor about how much he enjoyed the column. I wish I had taken your class.
And so, with no further ado, farewell.
I’d like to end with my favorite quote from the Farmer’s Almanac: “It is obvious that neither we nor anyone else has as yet gained sufficient insight into the mysteries of the universe to predict weather long-range with anything resembling total accuracy.”
I think that about sums it up.

Author