10 Unnamed American Cities Drug Tested - How Much Can it Tell Us?

Can a whole city be drug tested without citizens knowledge or permission? The idea will have anti drug advocates jumping for joy, constitutional rights advocates protesting and potheads nervously flushing doobies down the toilet. Although now that's the last place you want to dispose of your dope because researchers have already peered into the drug habits of 10 unamed American cities using their waste water. A teaspoon of waste water was all Oregon State University researchers needed to test for 15 different drugs including caffeine, ecstasy, methamphetamines, and cocaine for the whole city. The story can be found on msn.com.

Now I have a few questions and thoughts and am eager to see what the various extremists will do if city wide drug testing becomes common place. For example, anti drug advocates will think city wide drug tests are a great idea and will not be able to wait until all U.S. cities are tested on a regular basis and the citizens of the worst abusing cities are targeted for anti drug education and heightened police scrutiny. While at the same time those who are for an individuals rights will protest city wide drug testing and call any action resulting from such tests as unconstitutional and a violation of rights.

Yeah, the government could use information from tests like these to monitor drug trafficking and identify which areas of the country have the biggest drug problems, but seriously, the general public doesn't need waste water tests to know which cities have the most drug users. Everyone knows which cities are the worst, I won't name names big cities but you know who you are too.

Researchers also found that "One urban area with a gambling industry had meth levels more than five times higher than other cities." Wow, not much of a surprise there. They also found that small Midwestern cities had virtually no traces of methamphetamine. That's not a shocker either. Party drugs like cocaine and ecstasy levels peaked during the weekend, when people have the most parties. Don't get me wrong, this is all good information and can go a long way in helping the war on drugs but we already knew gambling and drugs are common together, small Midwestern communities have low instances of drug use and use of "party" drugs peaks on the weekends.

And what about the drug user estimates we already have from surveys? City wide waste water tests have preliminarily shown that survey data has underestimated the amount of drug use. I have to laugh at that, of course voluntary surveys will underestimate drug use, the hard core crack heads will be too busy looking for their next fix to participate and the pot heads will be too paranoid. A lot of the rest of the participants will lie, it's human nature.

With this news, for me, comes the realization that there is nothing left to speculation anymore and anyone can find out anything about you, if their motivated enough to crawl around in your sewer. The bottom line is the general public has the right to be defended from drug users who endanger their lives but somehow I don't feel any more secure knowing that waste water tests call tell us what we already knew. We know certain cities have high numbers of drug users and that effects life for everyone including law abiding citizens. We know something should be done, and many agencies are actively trying to curb the amount of drugs that come into the country and eradicate the drugs that are already here. But at this time, we still don't know exactly what works to stop illicit drug use or we wouldn't be testing sewer water at all.