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 odviously shouldn't be used to finger any one person useing. But it would help federal law enforcement and other agencies track the spread of 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.Is there a legality argument here I don't think so, but people have been sued for less.
"It's a community urinalysis,"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, The ingredient Americans consume and excrete the most was caffeine, Field said.That's some amazing statistic's though, I do admit.
Cities in the experiment ranged from 17,000 to 600,000 in population, but they declined to identify them, saying that could harm her relationship with the sewage plant operators.
There 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 must leave 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,".
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