The abuse and addiction of drugs including THC, psychostimulants, opioids, and hallucinogens are considered a national crisis affecting public health (63.1% of drug overdose deaths) as well as social and economic welfare (economic burden of $78.5 billion per year) in the USA. Recently, an elevated rate of heroin seizures (160% increase from 2009 to 2013) is reported in addition to prevalent clandestine meth-labs, indoor/outdoor cannabis cultivation in the Midwest USA. Ten illicit drugs and their major metabolites were determined in wastewater from two wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in the Western Kentucky. Drug’s concentration in wastewater, population served by WWTPs, wastewater inflow, excretion rate of drugs, the stability of drugs in wastewater were utilized to estimate community usage of drugs. The estimated rate of consumptions for methamphetamine (~3.0 g/d/1000 people), cocaine (~2.0 g/d/1000 people), heroin (~20.0 g/d/1000 people), and THC (~40.0 g/d/1000 people) were found significantly higher in national holidays. The drug consumption profiles in two communities, ~50 miles apart, were found different. The semi-real-time determination of drug usage in communities can be an invaluable resource for authorities to map hot spots of drug use, assess trends over time, prompt intervention, identify new drugs of use in the community, and correlate the abuse activities with social and demographic characteristics.

Community usage of illicit drugs in Western Kentucky, USA

255th National Meeting (2018)

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