History Main / MistakenForJunkie

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' Hawkes after his girlfriend took him to a party where pot was being used. He was around the smoke long enough that he got the residue in his system and it showed in his random NYPD drug test. It wasn't enough to get him fired, though Mac called him on it.
** A similar thing happened to Delko in ''Series/CSIMiami'', except it was his sister (who was taking it for medical reasons) and him testing positive (along with a few other things) convinces an IA agent that the lab's corrupt [[spoiler: causing her to try and plant evidence to [[FramingTheGuiltyParty "prove"]] it]].

* ''Fanfic/GrayWhirlpoolSeries'': Ryoma assumes Corrin has become a drug addict in Nohr, when she’s just trying to get medicine for Elise’s Terminal 7 disease.

* In the Marlon Waynes movie ''Film/{{Senseless}}'', Waynes' character is using an experimental drug to enhance his senses to superhuman levels (in order to both get the girl and win a coveted business internship). His roommate walks in on him after he's given himself an injection, sees the needle, and (based on this and Waynes' erratic behavior) assumes that he's gotten hooked on heroin. Eventually Waynes' character explains what is really going on to his roommate, but its not clear if he really believes him; during the big confession scene during the climax as Waynes reveals that he's been using a drug to get an advantage in the competition for the internship, the roommate interrupts him to announce that "[[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial It's NOT heroin!]]"

* There's a variation in one of the ''Trace'' novels by Warren Murphy. A bigtime movie star travels with a doctor who gives him pills on a regular basis. The movie star acts like these are some kind of "happy pills", but the doctor later reveals that the star is in poor health and all the pills are actually medically necessary.

* Potential inversion twice in ''Series/CardiacArrest'' reminding us that insulin is actually a very dangerous chemical. First when someone injects themselves with an overdose as a suicide and second when a deranged diabetic injects a doctor with his own insulin. [[spoiler: The series ends with the doctor, who is the main character, being carried into the operating theater after preliminary treatment on a couch.]]

** Appears to be a case of TruthInTelevision since ''Series/MythBusters'' proved that eating poppy seeds actually can register a positive for opium with some drug tests, in spite of the fact that there are only trace amounts in the poppy seeds used for cooking.

** In an episode where Marge and Homer reminisce about college days; Homer had become a grunge rock star, but due to Marge dating her teacher he had become withdrawn and depressed. He wrote a song for her (a parody of "Glycerine") and when she saw it she went to go get him back: She found him with a syringe in his arm. When she went to pull it out, Homer cried "But I need it!". Turns out it was insulin, as Homer became diabetic from drinking too many Starbucks Frappuccinos, He really did need it.

* In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' Terry's mom jumps to conclusions upon finding suspicious looking patches in her son's bag. To her credit these ''were'' drugs, a steroidal compound known as "slappers," but Terry was bringing them to [[Franchise/{{Batman}} his boss]] for analysis. Terry's (entirely truthful) excuses don't help: "They're not mine! [[HoldingItForAFriend I found them]]!"

* If somebody is having to either have a massive number of blood-draws or injections -- or both -- for medical reasons, they might actually have to carry around a card or other paperwork verifying that the tracks are all perfectly legitimate. In particular, the Red Cross can issue cards to verify why a frequent donor might have suspicious looking scars.

* Hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism are both very bad for this. Someone severely hyperthyroid will sometimes appear for all intents and purposes to be on something like methamphetamine or similar because the symptoms of severe hyperthyroidism can come across very similarly to those of meth addiction. Hypothyroidism, on the other hand, can present similarly to someone drugged up on sleeping pills or opiates with its tiredness, sluggishness, and similar.

* A certain brand of catnip mouse decided to package the catnip separately and give you a little extra to restuff the mouse with, in a clear plastic tube with a black twist top at the end. People then come in to your house to find a crushed, dried green plant in a suspicious looking tube on your counter. Hilarity ensues.

* ''Fanfic/{{Coping}}'': Twilight is surprised that Applejack and Rainbow Dash [[TheStoner smoke weed]], but she's also surprised that the fun-loving partier Pinkie Pie does not. She's tried it in the past but she isn't fond of drugs.

A classical NotWhatItLooksLike scenario; Alice walks in Bob's room, sees Bob injecting something in his arm with a syringe. Assumptions are made, and conclusions jumped to, until Bob reveals that he's diabetic and was taking his insulin shot. May be played for drama or for comedy.

Unfortunately TruthInTelevision, and some groups are almost guaranteed to have encounters with it: diabetics, as mentioned, (due to the need for insulin injections); transgender people (due to the need for hormone injections and the status of androgens/testosterone and some estrogens as controlled substances); nocturnals or those with sleep phase disorder or those with hyperthyroidism as users of illegal stimulants (due to different sleeping patterns, and in the latter two, behavior that sometimes resembles stimulant users). Anyone who frequently has to have IV injections or blood work done will almost always get this, especially if they were unlucky enough to have encountered someone doing the injection/blood work so improperly as to give them a track mark. Legitimate pain patients and those legitimately taking a lot of psychotropic medications for mental illnesses are also often assumed to be junkies, because they're taking lots of pills/other medications, never mind that is to keep them alive and (somewhat) well.

* In one ''ComicStrip/{{Zits}}'' strip, Walt is suspicious when Jeremy start burning incense in his room. Thinking it is to cover up the smell of pot smoke, he bursts in to discover Jeremy is using it cover up the smell of him cooking waffles.

* In ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/347784/of-butterflies-and-trees Of Butterflies and Trees]]'', a couple of stallions make fun of Tree Hugger and ask her where she keeps her weed. Despite her a NewAgeRetroHippie persona and [[GRatedStoner attitude]], Tree Hugger actually doesn't use drugs, because she dislikes what they to do her.

* In ''Film/MadMoney,'' two of the protagonists see the third's syringes fall out when she drops her purse. They give her a mini-lecture on drugs, but of course it turns out she's simply diabetic. Except in this case she never tells them.

* Subverted in the film ''Film/BodyOfEvidence''. The murder victim's secretary claims to have seen his girlfriend (and suspected killer) snorting cocaine. When her lawyer confronts her about this, she reveals that the white powder was an herbal medication for menstrual cramps. Later it turns out that she did in fact use cocaine and that what the secretary assumed was probably correct.

* In ''Earth vs. the Spider'', Stephanie sees a track mark on Quentin's arm, and assumes he's been shooting up. He explains to her that he was ''accidentally'' injected with a serum that gives him spider powers.

* In ''[[Literature/TheBloodLadders An Heir to Thorns and Steel]]'' Morgan's seizures get so bad that his doctor prescribes opium. But the first time he takes it he gets the dosage wrong and his friends see him stoned and assume his emaciated figure is a sign of long-term addiction, since he tried to hide his illness from them. Eventually they talk to his doctor, who shows him how to dilute it properly too.

** In one episode House stopped taking his vicodin and appeared pain free. His colleagues deduced he had started heroin but he had actually turned to methadone.
** This trope is what actually attributed to the loss of House's leg muscle. He was in obvious huge amounts of pain, injected himself in the thigh with demerol, the Doctors thought he was just an addict and sent him home. And you know what happened next...

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' Hawkes, after his girlfriend took him to a party where pot was being used. He was around the smoke long enough that he got the residue in his system and it showed in his random NYPD drug test. It wasn't enough to get him fired, though Mac called him on it.

** A similar scene occured when a young man was rushed into the hospital with chest pains. Dave Malucci assumed he was having a cocaine-induced heart attack, despite his brother insisting that he didn't use drugs, as well as a ''negative'' toxicology screen. To that end, he browbeat his senior doctor into giving the man a thrombolytic (a clot-dissolving drug used in the treatment of heart attacks and strokes)--which killed him because the man wasn't having a heart attack, but an aortic dissection.

** And when the staff is subjected to drug testing. Peter is worried that he might test positive given his occasional pot-smoking. He doesn't, but Lana tested positive for ''cocaine'', stunning her as she had long since given up that lifestyle. It turns out the medium used for testing--human hair, because toxic substances can linger in the hair long after a person has last used the drug--could also easily pick up outside substances. Lana lived in a poor neighborhood where drug use was frequent and the cocaine particles in the air had clung to her hair (and it being African-American hair made them even more likely to stick than to hair of a different ethnicity and texture), making her test positive even though she no longer used drugs.

* One episode of ''Series/DocMartin'' has a woman who's erratic behavior and foul breath causes people around Portwen to believe she's a drunkard. Once Martin is called after she collapses, he instantly diagnoses her as being a diabetic: her "drunken" breath was actually caused by a buildup of ketones in her bloodstream.

* The Suicidal Tendencies song "Institutionalized" has its focus character get sent to an institution partly because of this trope.

* In a story arc of ''Webcomic/SandraAndWoo'' the girl Larisa is caught by a teacher when giving herself an insulin shot during recess. The initial confusion was logical enough, since Larisa did play up the "junkie" image for a laugh, but even after being informed that she literally needs it to live, the principal continues insisting that taking this "dangerous drug" violates the school's zero tolerance policy against drugs. The plot was inspired by a [[TruthInTelevision similar incident on a U.S. middle school in the 1990s]]. [[http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2009/05/18/0060-addicted/ Start reading here.]]

** In an episode where Marge and Homer reminisce about college days; Homer had become a grunge rock star, but due to Marge dating her teacher he had become withdrawn and depressed. He wrote a song for her (a parody of "Glycerine") and when she saw it she went to go get him back: She found him with a syringe in his arm. When she went to pull it out, Homer cried "But I need it!". Turns out it was insulin, as Homer became diabetic from drinking too many Starbucks Frappacinos, He really did need it.

** This also led to quite nasty transphobic discrimination against FTM athletes for a long time - seeing as testosterone is, obviously, a banned substance in most organized athletics, and there ''were'' cases of female non-transitioning athletes doping with it, FTM persons (or even women ''mistaken'' for them such as Caster Semenya) were often disqualified from organized athletic competitions or otherwise forced to "prove" their female gender and that their body was naturally producing any excess of testosterone. This situation is slowly beginning to change with some sports accepting transmen who have legitimate proof they are indeed transitioning to male and whose testosterone levels are within the cisgender male range, but still lingers on in others.

* In ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/347784/of-butterflies-and-trees Of Butterflies and Trees]]'', a couple of stallions make fun of Tree Hugger and ask her where she keeps her weed. Despite her a NewAgeRetroHippie persona and [[GRatedStoner attitude]], Tree Hugger actually çoesn't use drugs, because she dislikes what they to do her.

* In ''[[Literature/TheRedVixenAdventures Shadow of Doubt]]'' Alinadar is seen injecting herself by a maid, whom she threatens to not tell. [[spoiler: She used to be a ChildSoldier and her "owner" got her addicted to combat stimulants, she's currently taking a prescription agonist to mitigate the withdrawal symptoms and is ashamed of it.]]

* One episode of ''Franchise/{{Emergency}}'' had a know-everything former combat medic training to become a paramedic. The patient he insisted was on an acid trip turned out to be a diabetic with dangerously low blood sugar, who would have died if Roy and Johnny hadn't given him glucose.

* In ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/347784/of-butterflies-and-trees Of Butterflies and Trees]]'', a couple of stallions make fun of Tree Hugger and ask her where she keeps her weed. But, despite her a NewAgeRetroHippie, Tree Hugger actually [[GRatedStoner doesn't use drugs]] because she dislikes what they to do her.

* One of the subplots in''The Help'': Minny walks in on her boss, Celia, sitting on her bed with a dozen bottles of what appears to be homemade alcohol, and believes she's discovered that Celia is a closet alcoholic, which repulses her. When she finally confronts Celia about it, Celia tells her that it was actually a "tonic", a home brew she'd turned to in a desperate attempt to carry a pregnancy to term after a series of miscarriages.

* Curt from ''Fat Kid Rules The World'' is extremely skinny, doesn't wash his hair often, is referred to as "semi-homeless", and wears dirty, damaged clothing. He gets mistaken for a drug addict but he doesn't use drugs.

* In ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/347784/of-butterflies-and-trees Of Butterflies and Trees]]'', a couple of stallions make fun of Tree Hugger and ask her where she keeps her weed. But, despite her a NewAgeRetroHippie Tree Hugger actually [[GRatedStoner doesn't use drugs]] because she dislikes what they to do her.

[[folder: Fan Fic]]
* Parodied by FoxxFireart in his/her [[http://foxxfireart.deviantart.com/art/Code-Geass-Refraining-87013589 Code Geass fan-comics]]. In R2 when [[spoiler: Lelouch is going to use drugs to escape from his depression]]
* In the serious AU of ''Comicbook/CaptainCarrotAndHisAmazingZooCrew'' "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/673833/1/Amazing-Zoo-Crew-The-Harmony-Trap The Harmony Trap]]", one of the characters is a dog who used to be a policeman and has diabetes which he tried to keep secret. It's mentioned that Internal Affairs catching him with needles was the worst moment of his life, although he was easily able to prove that it wasn't what they thought it was.
* PlayedForDrama in ''FanFic/TheRiseOfDarthVulcan''. As a result of Princess Luna including vampire bats in their genetic makeup, thestrals literally must drink blood to survive. But the rest of the ponies found this icky, so they made up some nonsense about the blood hunger being a mental disease, banned the drinking of blood, and forced the thestrals to use an alchemical substitute that keeps them all borderline starving. Needless to say, Luna was ''furious'' when she found out that Celestia had endorsed all this.
* In ''FanFic/RivalsSeries'' when Viktor walks in on Yuuri taking anti-anxiety medication in a secluded area before his performance, he fills in the blanks of the suspicious circumstances and he concludes that Yuuri must be doping. Yakov makes the same assumption and reports Yuuri to the ISU, leading to the doping scandal.

[[folder: Film]]

[[folder: Jokes]]

[[folder: Literature]]
* Only a partial example since Literature/SherlockHolmes actually ''is'' canonically a drug addict, however, there's one particularly amusing scene in "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter" where Watson walks in on Holmes filling a needle ''[[OutOfCharacterMoment during a case]]'' and panics. It turns out that the solution is really aniseed oil, with which Holmes marks a carriage so that Watson's dog can follow it.

[[folder: Live Action TV]]

[[folder: Music]]

[[folder: Newspaper Comics]]
* In one ''ComicStrip/{{Zits}}'' strip, Walt is suspicious when Jeremy start burning incense in his room. Thinking it is to cover up the smell of pot smoke, he bursts in to discover Jeremy is using it cover up the smell of him cooking waffles.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Religion]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

[[folder: Visual Novels]]

[[folder: Webcomics]]

* In ''Webcomic/{{Shiniez}}'' Ally's neglect of her day to day life during her relationship with Alan caused her mother to make this mistake when in reality she was addicted to the BDSM.

[[folder: Web Original]]

* In ''{{WebVideo/Kickassia}}'', after a particularly over the top LargeHam moment:
-->'''Linkara:''' Are you HIGH?!
-->'''Angry Joe:''' *Demented smile*
** In ''WebVideo/SuburbanKnights'', Bill, who really does seem to be TheStoner, reacts this way to what [[BigBad Malecite]] says.
---> "Dude, what are you high? Cause I totally want some."

[[folder: Western Animation]]

-->'''Congressman:''' Are you high or just incredibly stupid?
-->'''President Bush:''' I assure you — [[ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne I am not high!]]

[[folder: Real Life]]
* During the Sydney Olympics a cleaner received a needle stick injury whilst cleaning an Australian athlete's room, but the needle turned out to be for a vitamin shot.
** This is a real pain in the ass for monitoring cyclists as many top athletes will inject themselves with vitamins in between races to recover faster. The equipment is nearly identical to what you would need to dope your blood or do EPO.

* Briefly done in Dan Brown's ''Literature/DigitalFortress'', where David Becker mistakes a DistressedDamsel at the airport for a drug addict.

* A ''Trans-e Generation'' comic has a trans man's testosterone injection mistaken for a drug.

* A tragic example in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' with Vera Keyes. Her partner in crime finds out that she has making heavy use of narcotics and painkillers, and blackmails her into helping him. Technically it's true that Vera is indeed on all of those drugs.... but the reason is that she's terminally ill and her condition causes her severe chronic pain. She doesn't want anyone to know she's dying, so she takes drugs secretly to manage her symptoms.

* ''Literature/The Help'': Minny walks in on her boss, Celia, sitting on her bed with a dozen bottles of what appears to be homemade alcohol, and believes she's discovered that Celia is a closet alcoholic, which repulses her. When she finally confronts Celia about it, Celia tells her that it was actually a "tonic", a home brew she'd turned to in a desperate attempt to carry a pregnancy to term after a series of miscarriages.