Cocaine in surface waters: a new evidence-based tool to monitor community drug abuse

BACKGROUND: Cocaine use seems to be increasing in some urban areas worldwide, but it is not straightforward to determine the real extent of this phenomenon. Trends in drug abuse are currently estimated indirectly, mainly by large-scale social, medical, and crime statistics that may be biased or too generic. We thus tested a more direct approach based on 'field' evidence of cocaine use by the general population. METHODS: Cocaine and its main urinary metabolite (benzoylecgonine, BE) were measured by mass spectrometry in water samples collected from the River Po and urban waste water treatment plants of medium-size Italian cities. Drug concentration, water flow rate, and population at each site were used to estimate local cocaine consumption. RESULTS: We showed that cocaine and BE are present, and measurable, in surface waters of populated areas. The largest Italian river, the Po, with a five-million people catchment basin, steadily carried the equivalent of about 4 kg cocaine per day. This would imply an average daily use of at least 27 ± 5 doses (100 mg each) for every 1000 young adults, an estimate that greatly exceeds official national figures. Data from waste water treatment plants serving medium-size Italian cities were consistent with this figure. CONCLUSION: This paper shows for the first time that an illicit drug, cocaine, is present in the aquatic environment, namely untreated urban waste water and a major river. We used environmental cocaine levels for estimating collective consumption of the drug, an approach with the unique potential ability to monitor local drug abuse trends in real time, while preserving the anonymity of individuals. The method tested here – in principle extendable to other drugs of abuse – might be further refined to become a standardized, objective tool for monitoring drug abuse

Environmental Impact Assessment of Settlement and Development in the Upper Léraba Basin

Copyright © 1995The International Bank for Reconstructionand Development/THE WORLD BANK1818 H Street, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20433, U.S.A. All rights reservedManufactured in the United States of AmericaFirst printing November 1995 Technical Papers are published to communicate the results of the Bank’s work to the development community with the least possible delay. The typescript of this paper therefore has not been prepared in accordance with the procedures appropriate to formal printed texts,..

Enviromental impact assessment of settlement and development in the upper leraba basin : burkina faso, cote d'Ivoire, and Mali

Bibliografi hlm. 37 - 38Xii, 39 hlm. : il. ; 28 cm

Laboratory Toxicity of Potential Blackfly Larvicides on Some African Fish Species in the Onchocerciasis Control Programme Area

Received June 5, 1990 The Onchocerciasis Control Programme of the World Health Organization uses larvicides to fight against the aquatic stages of the vector Simulium damnosum s.l., and thereby interrupt transmission of the disease. Since the appearance of resistance to Abate and chlorphoxim in certain cytotypes of the vector, the efficacy of many possible replacement insecticides has been tested and the impact of the best of them (permethrin, cyphenothrin, pyraclofos, and carbosulfan) on the..

Environmental impact assessment of settlement and development in the upper leraba basin: Burkina faso,cote d'ivoire,and mali

xii+38hlm.;27c

Spatial distribution of PAHs in the U.K. atmosphere using pine needles

A study of the spatial distribution and mixture of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in pine needles sampled across the U.K. in the summer of 1994 is presented. PAHs reach pine needles via atmospheric transport and deposition processes. Phenanthrene was distributed irregularly across the U.K., while the other PAHs generally decreased on a northward gradient from the southern England to northern Scotland by a factor of ~7. A relationship was found between the mean PAH concentrations of each area sampled and the population density. Fingerprint technique enabled differences in the PAH composition among the different areas to be highlighted. A southern, central, and northern fingerprint were determined over a more general uniform contamination pattern. Calculated air concentrations, through bioconcentration factors (BCF) based on octanol-air partition coefficients (K(oa)), were compared with measured data from the literature. The underestimation of the calculated values were related to the K(oa) of each compound, indicating that for log K(oa) values >8-9, K(oa)-based BCFs do not correctly predict mean air concentrations