Scientists drug-test whole cities

IcebergSlim

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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.

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.

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.
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Scientists drug-test whole cities
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
August 21, 2007


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[Edited for FP
 
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this is one of the sutpidest ways to test for ive heard of.

you know what the city would fail for....

EVERYTHING.
 
Well they need to put everyone in these goddamn cities in jail until they stop abusing these goddamn drugs! That will teach these cities!
 
Most likely data collected would be used to determine "Drug War" budgets. If your city is chock full o' meth according to the tests, it'll get more $$ than some city that is barely registering.

Then they'll be able to afford house-to-house sweeps to find the real narco-terrorists that fund Al-Quaeda and killed your cousin in Iraq and your Sister-in-Law in Afghanistan.

Or at least make some folks feel better about their son dying from gunshots to the back from his platoon-mates.
 
Step 1- This city has more drug use we need to focus our efforts here.
Step 2- This small area of the city has more drugs let's focus our efforts here.
Step 3- A cop is in the sewer grabbing your individual crap to test you.
Step 4- By surrendering your feces to the waste management system, you are surrendering the privacy of your specific waste.
 
research like this is just going to show most of the trends that any narc would know anyway, or shit any drug user in the area would know.
WOW the inner city piss tests positive for cocaine and heroin and the suburban piss tests for more alcohol, weed, and prescriptions.
It seems like pretty much the same feedback we get from those 'confidential' things they used to hand out in highschool asking "what drugs/sexual activity are you and your peers doing?" and shit like that.
so what if this research doesn't tell us anything we don't already know? "Sewer Drug Tests" is going to catch your eye (like it did mine) and more people will read the research paper. Use a snappy title, some lame crap about the 'meth epidemic' and maybe a few decent numbers and you've got yourself a study that gets some airplay.....shit or at least the front page of bluelight for a few days.....
 
Apparently we consume more caffeine than food...

i think caffeine is actually a huge problem because people do not acknowledge it as a "drug", yet we all know hundreds of people that MUST have a cup of coffee in the morning, or they simply cant go through their day. caffeine is not that different from cocaine or amphetamine, except the latter 2 can actually be fun.

And i think this whole sewage testing thing sounds a little ridiculous, but its defenitely interesting (still, as someone already said, you can just go to the DEA's website and look at how many kilos of what go into each city to compare... although i dont exactly trust the DEA for obvious reasons

Most likely data collected would be used to determine "Drug War" budgets. If your city is chock full o' meth according to the tests, it'll get more $$ than some city that is barely registering.

Then they'll be able to afford house-to-house sweeps to find the real narco-terrorists that fund Al-Quaeda and killed your cousin in Iraq and your Sister-in-Law in Afghanistan.

Or at least make some folks feel better about their son dying from gunshots to the back from his platoon-mates.

^^this information can already be found, the sewage testing isn't going to help them.
 
i think caffeine is actually a huge problem because people do not acknowledge it as a "drug", yet we all know hundreds of people that MUST have a cup of coffee in the morning, or they simply cant go through their day.

not to mention it's added to tons of sodas.. people don't even think about it when they order that extra large coke at the drive-thru but theres plenty of caffeine in there too. caffeine is the only drug which is acceptable to market towards kids too. we used to have this thing called 'channel 1' in my high school it was a 15 minute newscast produced for high school students. it also had some commercials and i recall mt dew being advertised a lot
 
foodisgood said:
Step 1- This city has more drug use we need to focus our efforts here.
Step 2- This small area of the city has more drugs let's focus our efforts here.
Step 3- A cop is in the sewer grabbing your individual crap to test you.
Step 4- By surrendering your feces to the waste management system, you are surrendering the privacy of your specific waste.
well... it doesn't take a massive leap of imagination... what's next, the mandatory installation of drug-testing equipment in everyone's plumbing? scary stuff. :|
 
^
There are plenty of other prescription and OTC meds marketed towards children.

I think comparing caffeine use to illicit/pharm drug use is misleading. They're on completely different levels.

You could accurately compare alcohol to illicit/pharm drugs...
 
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.

Yeah, because the likes of the DEA & other US fedral agencies have a history of respecting privacy/human rights eh?
 
^I initially misread that as loser drug laws.

I doubt that testing everyone's sewage will ever happen because of the prohibitive cost involved. Fortunately, economics can help us even if the Constitution won't!
 
The ingredient Americans consume and excrete the most was caffeine, Field said.

Did anyone else catch the subtle word usage here? "Ingredient" instead of "drug"...

Obviously if the tests results showed the highest amount being caffeine, then they were testing caffeine as a "drug".

However, I am hopeful for the usage of these methods. We can hold contests to see which large cities smoke more weed per capita. It would raise morale and competition.
 
I wouldn't deem it too abstract to imagine that at some point a person on parol or in a targeted federal area for drug consumption based on these results wouldn't have a collector placed in their sewer line for individual household testing behind the residences back.
 
bowdenta said:
im positive they already did this with cocaine in some European country like france testing river runoff

I believe it was a German river. I also remember there being a super huge amount of cocaine metabolites.


Id like to see the results of these tests from all over the world. It would be interesting to see just what city prefers what.

Wouldnt there have to be a minimum amount of people using said substance to produce the minimum amount of metabolites to actually be able to test?

I doubt theyd find any RCs or some of the rarer tryptamines, as at least in my experience, there are hardly any people using them.
 
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