Karen Ross ties together some work by different analytical groups which clearly correlates the level of drugs found in wastewater to the populace producing the wastewater, via secondary metabolites. Analytical chemistry has been demonstrated to be able to take samples of local wastewater, determine pharmaceutical contents, and trace the drugs back to a source.
Given that each drug produces distinct metabolic products, many of which are not found in nature, the groups used analytical techniques to measure the amounts of these metabolites in wastewater and rivers. Determining a concentration gradient, where the amounts of drug increase as one hones in on the source, makes this exercise into detective work. Their work, so far, implicated cattle farmers for using steroids (the anti-asthma salbutamol) to induce growth in their stock. They have also found the levels of cocaine in the Po River (Italy) to correlate to about 7 doses per 1000 people per day, using an estimate of 5 million contributors.
If there ever becomes a law connecting the production of secondary drug metabolites to a crime (pissing out broken-down coke, marijuana, heroin, etc.), then those who use them ought to fear.
Extrapolating this to sampling local sewage systems would give police the ability to narrow down to neighborhoods, and, theoretically, individual houses, from which sources of secondary metabolites came. Legally, I can see no way to protect onesself from this sampling of wastewater. It is not an invasion of your privacy to catch the stuff you flush away...
As they say--you may be paranoid, but that doesn't mean they're still not coming for you.
References:
- Strategic Survey of Therapeutic Drugs in the Rivers Po and Lambro in Northern Italy . Calamari, D., Zuccato, E., Castiglioni, S., Bagnati, R., and Fanelli, R. Environ. Sci. Technol., 37, 7, 1241 - 1248, (2003). doi: 10.1021/es020158e
- Cocaine in surface waters: a new evidence-based tool to monitor community drug abuse. Ettore Zuccato , Chiara Chiabrando , Sara Castiglioni , Davide Calamari , Renzo Bagnati , Silvia Schiarea and Roberto Fanelli. Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source 2005, 4:14. doi: 10.1186/1476-069X-4-14
- Drugs in the water. Karen Ross. Analytical Chemistry. 78, 1, 13, (2006). pdf
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Technorati tags: Chemistry, Wastewater Analysis, Drug Detection
