Teaspoon of urine can drug test an entire city

[GraceAbounds]

Teaspoon of urine can drug test an entire city

Scientists say sewer water sampling tracks community’s meth, cocaine use
The Associated Press
Updated: 4:06 p.m. CT Aug 21, 2007

WASHINGTON - Researchers have figured out how to give an entire community a drug test using just a teaspoon of wastewater from a city’s sewer plant.
The test wouldn’t be used to finger any single person as a drug user. But it would help federal law enforcement and other agencies track the spread of dangerous drugs, like methamphetamines, across the country.
Oregon State University scientists tested 10 unnamed American cities for remnants of drugs, both legal and illegal, from wastewater streams. They were able to show that they could get a good snapshot of what people are taking.
“It’s a community urinalysis,” said Caleb Banta-Green, a University of Washington drug abuse researcher who was part of the Oregon State team. The scientists presented their results Tuesday at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.
Two federal agencies have taken samples from U.S. waterways to see if drug testing a whole city is doable, but they haven’t gotten as far as the Oregon researchers.
Test results
One of the early results of the new study showed big differences in methamphetamine use city to city. One urban area with a gambling industry had meth levels more than five times higher than other cities. Yet methamphetamine levels were virtually nonexistent in some smaller Midwestern locales, said Jennifer Field, the lead researcher and a professor of environmental toxicology at Oregon State.
The ingredient Americans consume and excrete the most was caffeine, Field said.
Cities in the experiment ranged from 17,000 to 600,000 in population, but Field declined to identify them, saying that could harm her relationship with the sewage plant operators.
She plans to start a survey for drugs in the wastewater of at least 40 Oregon communities.
The science behind the testing is simple. Nearly every drug — legal and illicit — that people take leaves the body. That waste goes into toilets and then into wastewater treatment plants.
“Wastewater facilities are wonderful places to understand what humans consume and excrete,” Field said.
In the study presented Tuesday, one teaspoon of untreated sewage water from each of the cities was tested for 15 different drugs. Field said researchers can’t calculate how many people in a town are using drugs.
Questionnaires underestimate drug use
She said that one fairly affluent community scored low for illicit drugs except for cocaine. Cocaine and ecstasy tended to peak on weekends and drop on weekdays, she said, while methamphetamine and prescription drugs were steady throughout the week.
Field said her study suggests that a key tool currently used by drug abuse researchers — self-reported drug questionnaires — underestimates drug use.
“We have so few indicators of current use,” said Jane Maxwell of the Addiction Research Institute at the University of Texas, who wasn’t part of the study. “This could be a very interesting new indicator.”
David Murray, chief scientist for U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the idea interests his agency.
Murray said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is testing federal wastewater samples just to see if that’s a good method for monitoring drug use. But he didn’t know how many tests were conducted or where.
The EPA will “flush out the details” on testing, Benjamin Grumbles joked. The EPA assistant administrator said the agency is already looking at the problem of potential harm to rivers and lakes from legal pharmaceuticals.
The idea of testing on a citywide basis for drugs makes sense, as long as it doesn’t violate people’s privacy, said Tom Angell of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy, a Washington-based group that wants looser drug laws.
“This seems to be less offensive than individualized testing,” he said.

Teaspoon of urine can drug test an entire city - Addictions - MSNBC.com

 

[sundvlfn88]

I feel sorry for that one little old couple who live in that area and gets accused of using drugs because of everyone in that area doing them. Maybe accused isn't the word I was looking for, but maybe stereotyped.

 

[Tim]

I wonder what the results for an entire community would look like when some mother finds drugs on her kid and flushes his stash down the toilet. Just one gram of coke flushed down the toilet in a city of 600,000 must show up as 100's or 1000's of people taking the drug.

I see way too many variables here... who knows what goes down the drains. What about drug dealers that flush their stashes down the drain during a drug raid? Do you really think that all the drug makes it way to the sewer plant in one lump? It makes more sense that the drugs coat the rough inside of the sewer pipes and slowly leaches into the sewer system. That alone would taint the results.

 

[GraceAbounds]

I see way too many variables here... who knows what goes down the drains.

I was thinking exactly the same thing as far as the actual drug abuse issue goes. But even if it isn't being consumed/used due to being flushed, it still shows a 'level of presence' in the city. But yes, too many variables. It will be interesting to see how city levels compare.

 

[Peter Parka]

It kind of reminds me of a study over here that found traces of cocaine on 99% of all bank notes in circulation in London. I'm pretty sure it dosen't mean that 99% of Londoners are users though.