'COMMUNITY URINALYSIS' HELPS TRACE THE SPREAD OF NARCOTICS

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 wouldn't be used to finger any single person as a drug user.
But it would help federal law enforcement and other agencies track
the spread of dangerous 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.

"It's a community urinalysis," said Caleb Banta-Green, a University
of Washington drug abuse researcher who was part of the Oregon State
team. The scientists presented their results Tuesday at a meeting of
the American Chemical Society in Boston.

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.

In the study presented Tuesday, one teaspoon of untreated sewage
water from each of the cities was tested for 15 drugs.

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, said Jennifer Field, the lead researcher
and a professor of environmental toxicology at Oregon State.

The ingredient Americans consume and excrete the most was caffeine,
Dr. Field said.

Dr. Field said that 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.

"We have so few indicators of current use," said Jane Maxwell of the
Addiction Research Institute at the University of Texas, who wasn't
part of the study. "This could be a very interesting new indicator."

Benjamin Grumbles, EPA assistant administrator, joked that his agency
would "flush out the details" on testing.