PMID- 24314511
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20140905
LR  - 20221207
IS  - 1872-6283 (Electronic)
IS  - 0379-0738 (Linking)
VI  - 233
IP  - 1-3
DP  - 2013 Dec 10
TI  - Estimating daily and diurnal variations of illicit drug use in Hong Kong: a pilot 
      study of using wastewater analysis in an Asian metropolitan city.
PG  - 126-32
LID - S0379-0738(13)00411-8 [pii]
LID - 10.1016/j.forsciint.2013.09.003 [doi]
AB  - The measurement of illicit drug metabolites in raw wastewater is increasingly 
      being adopted as an approach to objectively monitor population-level drug use, 
      and is an effective complement to traditional epidemiological methods. As such, 
      it has been widely applied in western countries. In this study, we utilised this 
      approach to assess drug use patterns over nine days during April 2011 in Hong 
      Kong. Raw wastewater samples were collected from the largest wastewater treatment 
      plant serving a community of approximately 3.5 million people and analysed for 
      excreted drug residues including cocaine, ketamine, methamphetamine, 
      3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and key metabolites using liquid 
      chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. The overall drug use 
      pattern determined by wastewater analysis was consistent with that have seen 
      amongst people coming into contact with services in relation to substance use; 
      among our target drugs, ketamine (estimated consumption: 1400-1600 mg/day/1000 
      people) was the predominant drug followed by methamphetamine (180-200 mg/day/1000 
      people), cocaine (160-180 mg/day/1000 people) and MDMA (not detected). The levels 
      of these drugs were relatively steady throughout the monitoring period. Analysing 
      samples at higher temporal resolution provided data on diurnal variations of drug 
      residue loads. Elevated ratios of cocaine to benzoylecgonine were identified 
      unexpectedly in three samples during the evening and night, providing evidence 
      for potential dumping events of cocaine. This study provides the first 
      application of wastewater analysis to quantitatively evaluate daily drug use in 
      an Asian metropolitan community. Our data reinforces the benefit of wastewater 
      monitoring to health and law enforcement authorities for strategic planning and 
      evaluation of drug intervention strategies.
CI  - Copyright (c) 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
FAU - Lai, Foon Yin
AU  - Lai FY
AD  - The University of Queensland, The National Research Centre for Environmental 
      Toxicology (Entox), 39 Kessels Road, Coopers Plains, QLD 4108, Australia. 
      Electronic address: foon.lai@uqconnect.edu.au.
FAU - Bruno, Raimondo
AU  - Bruno R
FAU - Leung, Ho Wing
AU  - Leung HW
FAU - Thai, Phong K
AU  - Thai PK
FAU - Ort, Christoph
AU  - Ort C
FAU - Carter, Steve
AU  - Carter S
FAU - Thompson, Kristie
AU  - Thompson K
FAU - Lam, Paul K S
AU  - Lam PK
FAU - Mueller, Jochen F
AU  - Mueller JF
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20130909
PL  - Ireland
TA  - Forensic Sci Int
JT  - Forensic science international
JID - 7902034
RN  - 0 (Narcotics)
RN  - 0 (Waste Water)
RN  - 44RAL3456C (Methamphetamine)
RN  - 5353I8I6YS (benzoylecgonine)
RN  - 690G0D6V8H (Ketamine)
RN  - I5Y540LHVR (Cocaine)
RN  - KE1SEN21RM (N-Methyl-3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine)
RN  - XQY6JVF94X (norketamine)
SB  - IM
MH  - Chromatography, Liquid
MH  - Cocaine/analogs & derivatives/analysis
MH  - Hong Kong/epidemiology
MH  - Humans
MH  - Ketamine/analogs & derivatives/analysis
MH  - Methamphetamine/analysis
MH  - N-Methyl-3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine/analysis
MH  - Narcotics/*analysis
MH  - Pilot Projects
MH  - Substance Abuse Detection/*methods
MH  - Substance-Related Disorders/*epidemiology
MH  - Tandem Mass Spectrometry
MH  - Time Factors
MH  - Urban Population
MH  - Wastewater/*chemistry
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - China
OT  - Cocaine
OT  - Ketamine
OT  - MDMA
OT  - Methamphetamine
OT  - Substance consumption
EDAT- 2013/12/10 06:00
MHDA- 2014/09/06 06:00
CRDT- 2013/12/10 06:00
PHST- 2013/05/06 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2013/08/27 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2013/09/01 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2013/12/10 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2013/12/10 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2014/09/06 06:00 [medline]
AID - S0379-0738(13)00411-8 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.forsciint.2013.09.003 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Forensic Sci Int. 2013 Dec 10;233(1-3):126-32. doi: 
      10.1016/j.forsciint.2013.09.003. Epub 2013 Sep 9.