Assessment Of Long-term Trends Of Illicit Drugs Abuse In A City By Wastewater Analysis

Illicit drugs abuse not only harms the physical and mental health of individuals,but also causes social unrest,and even affects the economic structure of the country.Monitoring the long-term trend of illicit drug abuse in cities can provide indicative opinions for rational deployment and objective prediction of drug control work,which has important practical significance.Wastewater-based epidemiology only needs to analyze the concentration of illicit drug metabolites in domestic sewage to realize real-time monitoring of regional illicit drugs abuse.However,the long-term monitoring time span of illicit drugs abuse in cities is large,and the collected sewage samples are required to reflect the overall situation of the city to the greatest extent,so there is a shortage of the long-term trend of illicit drugs abuse in my country.Therefore,in this study,wastewater-based epidemiology was used to collect water samples from the inlets of representative sewage treatment plants in all administrative districts of a city,in order to more accurately assess the long-term trends of illicit drugs abuse in city.In this study,water samples from representative wastewater treatment plants in various administrative districts of a city were collected from 2020 to 2021.After pretreatment,biomarker concentrations of typical drugs methamphetamine,heroin,ketamine,ecstasy,and cocaine were analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.The consumption,prevalence and number of abusers of illicit drug abuse were calculated,and combied with the city’s 2015-2019 monitoring data to explore the long-term trends of illicit drugs abuse in the city.The results showed that,on the whole,the abuse of methamphetamine and heroin in the city from 2019 to 2021 showed a trend of first decreasing and then stabilizing,and the decreasing trend was statistically significant(p < 0.05),while the abuse of ketamine showed a low level.Consumption of methamphetamine in the city in 2020 and 2021 was 21.5 mg/d/1000 and 22.5 mg/d/1000 people,respectively;consumption of HER in 2020 and 2021 was 9.89mg/d/1000,and 10.0 mg/d/1000 people,respectively;while consumption of ketamine was 3.22mg/d/1000 people and 0.840 mg/d/1000 people,respectively.Combined with the monitoring data of methamphetamine in the city from 2015 to 2018,a linear regression analysis was carried out,and the results showed that consumption of methamphetamine in the four districts of the city from 2015 to 2021 showed a downward trend,and down to less than 1/10 compared with2015;Combined with the monitoring data of ketamine in the city from 2015 to 2017,it was found that the level of ketamine abuse in the four districts of the city decreased significantly from 2017(p < 0.05),and down to less than 1/10 compared to 2015.Analyzing the reasons for the annual change trend of drug abuse in the city,the annual change trend of drug abuse in the city from 2015 to 2019 is related to the national policy on the drug market;from 2019 to 2021,it is mainly affected by the government’s drug control efforts and the superposition of the epidemic.Assessment the city’s overall abuse found that methamphetamine,heroin,and ketamine were the main drugs abused in the city,while ecstasy and cocaine were not used.From 2020 to2021,there was no significant difference in consumption of methamphetamine,heroin,and ketamine among the administrative districts of the city(p < 0.05),but the administrative districts with the highest and lowest consumption of the three drugs were not the same.This study can update the drug situation of city in a timely manner,and provide powerful and effective data support for the country’s real-time monitoring of the regional drug situation and precise crackdown on drug crimes.