UK - Wastewater clues to illicit drug use

[edgarshade]

Planet Earth Online

22 March 2012, by Adele Rackley

With reader comments

A new chemical analysis of sewage is revealing more detailed information than ever about drug abuse trends.

The approach, pioneered by scientists at Bath and Huddersfield universities, can detect minute quantities of pharmaceuticals in waste water and could potentially reveal whether they originated as prescription drugs or illegal substances. In the case of certain drugs, like cocaine, it can even indicate how the drug has been taken.

This approach is better than previous ways of estimating drug use from sewage, because of its potential ability to rule out substances that have been medically prescribed. It can also distinguish between the direct disposal of drugs (into toilets during police raids, for example) from their actual consumption.

The work clearly shows that contamination from legal and illicit drug use is widespread in the environment, but we don't understand the toxic effects properly. 'It's crucial we adopt these methods early on,' says Kasprzyk-Hordern, 'because it takes so long between recognising the dangers of environmental hazards and regulating against them.' In future the technique could even be used to control disease, say the researchers; if you recognise the biochemical signs of a disease in an area's wastewater, you could take early action to stop it spreading.

http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=1185

 

[sleeves]

Great! How long will it be before we're bing drug tested UNKNOWINGLY everytime we flush our toilets.
That's crazy!

 

[edgarshade]

Or it becomes mandatory to fit analysers to our toilets that call the police to our houses if we flush anything suspicious.