Technology Of Derterming Macroscopic And Microscopic Illicit Drug Use Based On Wastewater Analysis

Many countries are confronted with social issues such as diseases and crimes caused by using illicit drugs which brings presures to the government in the public health and medical security.It is difficult for the government to control drugs and crimes by the limited information on investigating and monitoring illicit drugs use.Nowadays,methamphetamine has become one of the most widely used illicit drugs in China.The traditional method for obtaining the consumption and prevalence of methamphetamine is based on drugs and users which seized by the goverment.In recent years,the wastewater-based epidemiology(WBE)is a new method through analyzing drug metabolites in municipal wastewater to investigate communities or national drug use.This study used this approach to evaluate the national consumption of methamphetamine,this study collected samples from 27 wastewater treatment plants(WWTPs)in 22 typical Chinese cities.The concentration of methamphetamine in the wastewater samples was extracting by solid-phase and analysed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.Methamphetamine concentrations ranged from 42.6 ng/L to 700 ng/L with an average of 208±17 ng/L in influent.According to the back calculation,the consumption of methamphetamine was 164 mg/d/1000inh and prevalence was 0.64%.The annual consumption was 84 tons and there were approximately 5.8 million people used methamphetamine in 2018.Meanwhile,the consumption of methamphetamine by Monte Carlo simulation demonstrates that methamphetamine use in 2018 decreased by 26%compared with that in 2014 in China.Tracing sewage pipeline is a new method to find the location of drug users accurately.This study collected wastewater samples from Donggang,Liaoning Province including a WWTP inlet,pumping stations,residential communities and buildings.It was showed that the concentrations of methamphetamine gradually decreased from residential buildings to the WWTP inlet,because the concentration of methamphetamine in human urine is diluted and then enters to the WWTP.It was found that the concentration of methamphetamine in the pump station 4 was 681 ng/L,which were much higher than other pump stations.Moreover,the concentrations(9395 ng/L)in one community belong to the served region of the pump satation 4 was highest in all communities.Therefore,tracing sewage pipeline can assist the police to locate the exact position of the drug users.