Slashdot Mirror
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."
I wonder, if they start doing more and more extensive tests, could they eventually determine the household in which the drugs come from? What's preventing them from testing the sewer water directly out of a house, instead of a waste plant.
Will there be a need for sewer search warrants in the future? Hmm...
Results for Salt Lake City show very high levels of LDS
They'll also be able to tell if your city is pregnant
This drug war foolishness is getting out of hand.
My standing policy for piss testing is they have to collect it orally if they want if from me. Hot from the pipe.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
I have a couple of friends with a prescription for meth-amphetamines for their ADD, as they are basically immune to all the other drugs that have been tried on them. My girlfriend has a prescription for THC as it is the only mood elevator that can control her bipolar condition. I have overactive production of an enzyme CYP2D6, meaning my medicine cabinet would make a heroin addict drool.
We all have constant levels in our systems, stable jobs, and interact well in society. Just because someone needs to take these drugs do not mean that we cannot hold a job, or that we are scabs on society... And just because (aside from the THC, which is not addictive) our meds are addictive, does not mean our usage varies, because we take our daily dose as covered by our medical insurance.
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
No, actually. They look for the levels of drug 'remnants' in your urine, not the actual substance.
If they took the huge amounts of money they spend on enforcement and used it to help people who were drawn to hard drugs in the first place...oh yah, we hate fixing things by helping people in the US. Ok, get back to jailing them.
The research lead, Jennifer Fields, has studied a number of waste water polutants, so scanning for narcotics is just another piece of the puzzle for waste water treatment. Gone (in the US) are the days when you could just disinfect public water with chlorine at the input and shoot it straight into a river at the output.
Now, water planners have to consider a much wider range of crap, from all the acetaminophen, birth control hormones, caffeine, and - yes - dope we're pissing away, as well as the usual collection of bacteria, viruses, organic matter, pez dispensers, and whatnot. It's not only that you don't want that stuff in the water supply, you don't want it collecting in the fish from the lake, Bambi's mom in the woods, or that water you merely boiled when out camping.
So, an increasing number water districts have to collect this information anyway. All that Fields did was analyze a portion of the data more intently. If your jurisdiction plans to stick a sensor into your waste stream at a point immediately before it commingles with that from your neighbors, you'll know about it 'way ahead of time, because it would be a Major project. Frankly, most water districts are so busy trying to keep everything flowing in the right direction, they couldn't be less interested in wasting time checking on your THC-related metabolic byproducts.
Luke, help me take this mask off
how is the truth flamebait? the US incarcerates its problems.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
So if the users wish to keep themselves quietly locked away at their own expense, then they should live with the consequences of the choices they make as adults, after all, it really is only a problem for the rest of society because of the high cost of those drugs and the dangerous criminal element associated with distributing those substances, who, in fact have a significant financial interest in making sure those substances remain illegal.
Whilst I am content to pay taxes for the medical treatment of a drug addicts, or to assist in rehabilitation services for them, having to pay the enormous cost of enforcing the illegality of those substances, or imprisoning the addicts, or the crimes that result because of the high cost of those substances and their addictive nature. As far as I am concerned those idiot wowsers are far more of a problem for me than the drug addicts, as the drug addicts are problem, which rather bluntly, eventually solves itself.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
You've bought into the Pusher Bogyman theory. Dealers come in many forms, PUSHERS is a completely made up term. Dealers don't pull strings to get people hooked, ask any pothead. They don't lurk around schools, or offer free drugs to 4th graders. 99% are just people trying to get by and using drug sales as their job. You never see a acidhead with a gun, unless he's planning to blow his own brains out. Same for Ecstasy and Pot Dealers. Crack dealers see it as their way out of poverty, they will do anything to get out even kill. Generally Violent Crime does not spill out into the regular people unless there are crossfires.
People have been robbing and burgling long before drugs and they will be at it long after this phony war is over. Saying that drug addicts are behind it is foolish. The dangerous criminal element are generally not drug addicts, and they are by far more dangerous to other drug dealers then to regular folk.