Researchers Test Urine to Track Drug Use

Hello everyone!

I'm back for another edition of Rob Comments on the News! For those out of the loop, this is where I, Rob, repost a news article with my own comments thrown in for schist and giggles. Let's get right to today's article, shall we?

Researchers Test Urine to Track Drug Use

Wait a minute. Aren't they already doing that?

By SETH BORENSTEIN

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.

Oh, I see. They're testing us all at once. I guess I'll have to start peeing in the backyard again.

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.

Really, you don't have to go through all that trouble. Just look for very thin people with bad teeth, open sores, and bugged-out eyes walking down the street or riding a (most likely stolen) bicycle, all the while shaking and twitching uncontrollably.

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.

Leave it to OSU. At least they're giving me a valid reason to not like them instead of the usual "They suck because I go to U of O!"

"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.

A community urinalysis? That almost sounds like a fun local event.

Radio Announcer: Come on down to the community urinalysis this Friday at the county fairground! Tickets are available at all Ticketmaster outlets or at the box office. Sponsored by Lipton Iced Tea.

I would imagine they'd have to have one of those trough urinals for something like that.

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.

Maybe if the federal agencies weren't headed up by unqualified people such as a former Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association, they'd have better luck.

On a side note, Brownie now works for a private company that offers "disaster relief and data-mining for government agencies and other customers." I hear they do a heckuva job.

But I digress.

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.

Well, there's a surprise. Every time I go to Las Vegas "an urban area with a gambling industry", everyone seems healthy, wealthy, and happy.

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

"The ingredient"? Really, is the AP afraid of losing advertising dollars from Starbucks if they call caffeine what it really is: a drug?

Maybe the next time I get picked up for possession of pot (not that I ever have, mind you, but the joke works better if you just go along with it), I'll tell the cops, "It's not a drug--it's an 'ingredient'".

Cities in the experiment ranged from 17,000 to 600,000 in population, but Field declined to identify them, saying that could harm her relationship with the sewage plant operators.

Even the plant operators must know that some people in their towns would be pissed (no pun intended) if they found out that their pee was being tested without their consent.

She plans to start a survey for drugs in the wastewater of at least 40 Oregon communities.

The science behind the testing is simple. Nearly every drug--legal and illicit--that people take leaves the body. That waste goes into toilets and then into wastewater treatment plants.

Let's see, the drugs leave the body, go into toilets, and end up in wastewater treatment. Was this article written for children? Seriously, I feel like I'm back in fourth grade reading a Weekly Reader.

"Wastewater facilities are wonderful places to understand what humans consume and excrete," Field said.

As someone who occasionally works around a wastewater plant, "wonderful" is not the first adjective that comes to mind.

In the study presented Tuesday, one teaspoon of untreated sewage water from each of the cities was tested for 15 different drugs. Field said researchers can't calculate how many people in a town are using drugs.

She 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.

You mean rich people go on coke binges over the weekend but tweakers tweak all week long? Wow, there's a shocker.

Field said her study suggests that a key tool currently used by drug abuse researchers--self-reported drug questionnaires--underestimates drug use.

Drug users lie about their drug use? Another shocker. I've always known drug users to be completely truthful--the more drugs, the more honest.

I swear this study should be called the "no duh" study. Maybe I can get a big government research grant to write a report about the obvious.

"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."

Jane sure loves her indicators, if you know what I mean. I hope you do know what I mean because I don't.

David Murray, chief scientist for U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the idea interests his agency.

Of course it does.

Murray said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is testing federal wastewater samples just to see if that's a good method for monitoring drug use. But he didn't know how many tests were conducted or where.

Of course he didn't.

The EPA will "flush out the details" on testing, Benjamin Grumbles joked. The EPA assistant administrator said the agency is already looking at the problem of potential harm to rivers and lakes from legal pharmaceuticals.

Benjamin, I laughed at your name but not your joke. People like you are testaments to the idea of the need for requiring people to pass a test to get a license to be able to tell jokes.

Also, the EPA shouldn't even waste their time. If the FDA already approved it, what makes the EPA think they'll be able to do anything? It's not like either group is adequately funded or anything.

The idea of testing on a citywide basis for drugs makes sense, as long as it doesn't violate people's privacy, said Tom Angell of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy, a Washington-based group that advocates legalizing most drugs.

It may not violate people's privacy the way they're doing it now, but don't worry, that will probably change soon enough. I mean, how hard would it be to lift a manhole personhole cover and go to the junction where, say, a school's outflow connects to the system and take a sample right from the line? Then they could use that to justify searching the whole school (not that they'd really need to these days).

"This seems to be less offensive than individualized testing," he said.

But at least you have to voluntarily pee in the cup (unless you're on parole or whatever).

A service of the Associated Press(AP)

The Final Word:

While this particular form of testing is supposedly for research purposes only, it's tough to imagine it will stay that way, especially considering that the Feds have already tried it. Once OSU's research methods are fine tuned, it will become yet another example of personal privacy being a thing of the past on our way to becoming a Police State. It's already legal for the police to search though a person's garbage without a warrant, so I can't see how testing the sewage in a public utility would be any different. Like the school I mentioned earlier, it's probably not very difficult to isolate a line from a specific house, depending on the particular configuration of the sewer system, of course.

However, I think public schools' sewage outputs will most definitely be tested. Students around the nation are already being randomly tested--meaning they're also being taught that something as personal and private as their pee is subject to someone else's examinations, even though studies show they don't do anything to stop drug use. But one thing the tests certainly do is train kids to grow up with no understanding of the right to privacy and to be seen as guilty until proven innocent. And people still wonder why so many of today's kids are apathetic, angry, and/or violent.

Anyway, I've decided that if somebody is going to be investigating my sewage, I'm going to make it as revolting as possible for that person.

Rob