Tracing Drug Use Patterns Through Nightclub Toilets

Maybe it’s unsurprising that finding data on illegal drug use is very, very difficult. Who’s taking what drugs, and where? It’s not the kind of information that many are willing to divulge, even to researchers, which puts law and public health officials in a tricky situation. If they’re hoping to track the global flow of drugs, they need to know where drugs are being consumed. If they’re hoping to study the effects of a drug on specific populations, they’re going to need to know who exactly is taking it, and when.

Just in the past decade or so, an entirely new field of research has sprung up to answer questions like these. It’s called “sewage epidemiology,” and its starting place is not the street corner or the methadone clinic—it’s the toilet. By sampling wastewater (including raw sewage), scientists have found they can get a real-time picture of a community’s drug use, one that is blessedly anonymous.