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Johan Lindberg
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Water analysis: an objective and cost-effective tool in the fight against drugs
Wastewater analysis can help a community or business track drug use over time and identify areas of unusually high use. It can also help the police detect the influx of new drugs.
– Water analysis can act as a 'health check' for a community, similar to occupational health services. It provides objective results, gives a good overview and also keeps the cost of producing health data down," says Johan Lindberg, head of chemical and pharmaceutical toxicology at RISE.
According to the Swedish National Board of Health, drug use will cost society SEK 38.5 billion in 2020. The Social Services Act requires municipalities to prevent and combat the abuse of alcohol and other addictive substances, including drugs.
The Swedish Work Environment Authority has no rules on drug testing at work. However, if the work involves a high risk of accidents, the assessment is that drug testing may be justified in both the public and private sectors.
In order to take preventive measures against drug abuse, or to find out whether a community or workplace has a problem with drug use, it is necessary to have a reliable basis on which to build the measures. Analysis of drugs in wastewater can provide an objective picture of the extent of the problem.
"Water analysis is a cost-effective way of finding out about drug use on a large scale. But it can also be used to see differences between different areas of a city, or even between different departments or buildings in the same workplace," says Johan Lindberg.
Several strengths over individual sampling
The strengths of water analysis are its objectivity and cost-effectiveness, and the fact that it is possible to follow developments over time.
"Water analysis can provide answers on how to prioritise efforts and resources. It is a very good complement to surveys and other data from the police or health services," says Louise Karlsson, researcher and project manager at RISE.
Unlike personal sampling, which can be perceived as offensive, water analysis also respects personal privacy and anonymises any drug users.
"If a company or municipal organisation judges that drug use is unlikely to be a major problem in a workplace, for example, it can avoid individual sampling, which could violate privacy," says Louise Karlsson.
A water analysis can provide answers on how to prioritise efforts and resources.
How water analysis works
Put simply, there are two main methods of analysis. The most common is to set up a panel where laboratory staff look for specific substances in the water and quantify them.
"We normalise the results to amounts per thousand people so that we can compare different times or places. For some drugs, we can also convert the results into a number of doses based on how much is excreted in urine.
The second method of analysis is to identify unknown substances in a sample.
"We are developing this, but we already have methods for finding new drugs in samples. An example of this is when we discovered that the new drug 'crystal' had arrived in Sweden," says Johan Lindberg.
"It can be a tool for the police to see routes of entry and distribution. When customs receive a seizure, we can see where the drug is appearing in Sweden," says Louise Karlsson.
Work on water analysis often starts with a municipality contacting RISE, which advises the municipality on how and when to take samples.
"If they have a specific question or want a general overview, we set up a sampling strategy. For example, we can take a 24-hour sample on both a weekday and a weekend for comparison," she says.
"We recommend taking a 24-hour sample at least twice a year, and preferably four times a year. Doing it continuously and spread out allows you to capture seasonal variations as well as other factors such as tourism or student flows.
Large amount of data on pharmaceuticals in wastewater
RISE has already collected data from municipalities and companies across the country. This makes it easy to see how big the problem is for a particular community compared to an anonymised community of similar size elsewhere in the country.
And while it is one thing to collect the data, it is equally important to explain it.
"We want to explain the results and guide our customers so that they can make the best use of the data," says Louise Karlsson.
"We are an accredited laboratory and work with quality all the time. One of our strengths is the breadth of our expertise. We have toxicologists, chemists and a large department working with AI and computational chemistry. This allows us to bring together teams with specific competences depending on the question," says Johan Lindberg.
OTHER APPLICATIONS FOR WATER ANALYSIS
Detecting and measuring drug use is not the only application for wastewater analysis. It is also possible to measure the amount of drugs and antibiotics, for example.
"We study pharmaceuticals and their metabolism. When we look for markers, we can use that knowledge. We set up drug panels, but we also analyse the presence of doping substances," says Johan Lindberg.
"We also look at the effectiveness of wastewater treatment plants in removing pharmaceuticals and other chemicals, and we have an antibiotics project.
Another important application is analysing the amount of environmentally hazardous chemicals in the effluent after it has been cleaned by the treatment plant.
"When we do drug analysis, we look at the incoming water to the treatment plant, but the really interesting thing here is how effectively the treatment plant can purify water that contains chemicals that we don't want to be released into our waterways," says Louise Karlsson.