Drug Testing Entire Cities at Once

Ellis D. Tripp writes "Researchers have developed a technique for determining what illicit drugs people might be consuming in a given area, by testing a sample from the local sewage treatment plant. As little as a teaspoonful of untreated wastewater can reveal drug use patterns in a given community. Obviously, any drugs found can't be tied to any specific user, but how much longer until the drug warriors want to deploy automatic sampling units farther upstream of the sewage treatment plant?" From the article: "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."

Comments

As a freethinking Atheist

[Anonymous Coward]

There would be no problems with drugs, wars, or disease once we move past superstitions such as religion. What reasoning do I have for this? All of the great thinkers in history were Atheists or would be Atheists if they had more knowledge. Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, Leonardo DiVinci, Socrates, Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds, America's Founding Fathers, and Penn & Teller are all Atheists. David Koresh, Jim Jones, Adolf Hitler, George W Bush, Osama Bin Laden, Pizarro, Joseph Stalin, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Mother Teresa have all caused harm based on Religion.

Only when we outgrow supertitions such as Religion will the human race progress.