Drug residues in Swedish sewage water

Chemists at Umeå University have been able to trace narcotics substances and prescription drugs in measurements of wastewater from 33 Swedish sewage treatment plants. Cocaine, amphetamine, and methamphetamine, in measurable concentrations, were found in a total of half of the locations. When a person consumes a drug it is excreted through the digestive system, either unchanged or as metabolites through the body and ends up in the wastewater. Through taking a sample of water in treatment plants and measuring the levels of drugs can provide a snapshot of the drug usage in a particular city. The method has been used before, both in Sweden and abroad, and is a complement to other methods to estimate drug use in society. "What is unique about our study is its scope and this is the first time this method has been used to screen the entire country for drugs," says Marcus Östman, who led the study and is a PhD student at the Department of Chemistry at Umeå University. "Previous measurements in Sweden have only applied to single locations and a limited number of substances.