SEWAGE A RELIABLE GUIDE TO DRUG ABUSE

Which city uses more cocaine: Los Angeles or London? Is heroin a big
problem in San Diego? And has Ecstasy emerged in rural America?

Environmental scientists are beginning to use an unsavory new tool,
raw sewage, to paint an accurate portrait of drug abuse in
communities. Like one big, citywide urinalysis, tests at municipal
sewage plants in many areas of the United States and Europe have
detected illicit drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and
marijuana.

Law enforcement officials have long sough a way to make reliable and
verifiable calculations of narcotics use, to identify trends and to
formulate policies. Surveys, the backbone of drug-use estimates, are
only as reliable as the people who answer them. But sewage does not
lie.

Because people excrete chemicals in urine and flush it down toilets,
measuring raw sewage for street drugs can provide quick, fairly
precise snapshots of drug use in communities, even on a particular
day.

The results have been intriguing.

Methamphetamine levels in sewage are much higher in Las Vegas than in
Omaha, Neb., and Oklahoma City, Los Angeles County has more cocaine in
its sewage than several major European cities. And Londoners
apparently are heavier users of heroin than people in cities in Italy
and Switzerland.