This week on The Tox Lab, we're diving into wastewater-based epidemiology and exploring how wastewater analysis can be used to monitor drug use and emerging drug trends.
We begin by discussing the UK national wastewater analysis programme and examining what wastewater data revealed about the use of commonly encountered recreational drugs in 2022. We explore what these measurements can tell us about population-level drug use and how wastewater analysis can provide a different perspective from more traditional sources of toxicological data.
We then turn to the use of wastewater analysis for monitoring novel psychoactive substances, discussing the detection of emerging compounds including nitazenes and xylazine.
Finally, we examine the recent detection of N-propionitrile chlorphine, also known as cychlorphine, in wastewater in the United States. We discuss what these findings may tell us about the emergence of this novel synthetic opioid and the potential for wastewater monitoring to identify new substances as they begin to appear in the illicit drug supply.
Join us as we explore how wastewater analysis is being used to monitor drug use, track emerging synthetic opioids and novel psychoactive substances, and consider whether wastewater could play an increasingly important role in early warning systems, harm reduction, and public health.
Hope you enjoy!
Links to papers we discussed:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.70398
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsestwater.5c01173?ref=PDF
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12319643/
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.6c00529
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