Detection of prescription and illicit drugs in waste water during sporting events

Abstract

Wastewater epidemiology is a noninvasive tool that uses wastewater as a means to gather nondiscriminatory information about the exposure of a group of people to drugs, toxins, and diseases, which is accomplished by analyzing the wastewater for the analytes of interest. This study aimed to develop an analytical method for the simultaneous detection of 57 prescription and illicit drugs and their metabolites in wastewater obtained during sporting events. The epidemiological data obtained from this study can be used to inform public health and safety entities about the current use of prescription and illicit drugs in the community. Wastewater samples were obtained from a football stadium several days prior to and during a game day, extracted via solid-phase extraction, and analyzed with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The analytes of interest spanned several drug classes, including stimulants, opioids, benzodiazepines, and illicit drugs such as cocaine and PCP. Of the 33 samples analyzed, 28 of the 57 compounds of interest were present in at least 1 sample, with 100% of samples containing at least 1 stimulant, opioid, and illicit drug, and 24% at least 1 benzodiazepine. The findings are generally consistent with self-reporting from the community where the samples came from, and future work will include cannabinoids to detect cannabis use.