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If authorities wanted to determine how pervasive the problem of illicit drug use was in their communities, how could they do it? One cheap and easy way has just been tried experimentally in Oregon. Based on the principle that what goes in must come out, researchers measured the amounts and kinds of drugs that made their way through users to become included in untreated wastewater. This first-of-its-kind research is reported in the journal Addiction.
Ninety-six municipal water treatment facilities across Oregon volunteered for the study, which concentrated on finding evidence of the drugs meth, cocaine and ecstasy. All samples were collected on the same day, in areas that include about two-thirds of that state’s population.
Some findings: evidence for cocaine use was primarily in urban areas, almost nonexistent in rural regions; ecstasy use tended toward urban areas as well, and only turned up in about half of all communities; meth was everywhere. More important than those one-day snapshot findings, however, is that this methodology was proven viable, and could be used to track patterns of drug use in multiple regions over time.
—Steve Mirsky
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8 Comments
Add CommentHow soon is it that someone tries to use this technique to target individuals (or at least individual households)?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisto dmmiller2k
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProbably happened to individual housholds before they went public with the "Community" Testing.
It's not like tapping a phone. There's no way the waste from an individual toilet can be targeted on its way to the sewer system.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDont ever think there is no way to do this. Jesus when are they going to quit spying on us?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't think it's so much as a spying technique as it is just for stats. It would be nice to know what parts of the world are high on the scale for certain drug use.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishow much quantity is used which can be detected in waste water when it gets many many times diluted. moreover when consumed it is digested in body and might change its orignal form and very small quantity as residue may be going to sewer.Please clarify. k.k.gupta.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhat about poisonous 'legal' drugs, aka Big Pharma RX'd
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd if someone hurriedly flushed a large cache of drugs down the toilet just before the police busted in? How much would that skew the results? After all, drugs flushed would presumably be drugs that went unused, right?
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