TY - JOUR
T1 - A Taste for New Psychoactive Substances
T2 - Wastewater Analysis Study of 10 Countries
AU - Bade, Richard
AU - White, Jason M.
AU - Ghetia, Maulik
AU - Adiraju, Santosh
AU - Adhikari, Sangeet
AU - Bijlsma, Lubertus
AU - Boogaerts, Tim
AU - Burgard, Daniel A.
AU - Castiglioni, Sara
AU - Celma, Alberto
AU - Chappell, Andrew
AU - Covaci, Adrian
AU - Driver, Erin M.
AU - Halden, Rolf U.
AU - Hernandez, Felix
AU - Lee, Heon Jun
AU - Van Nuijs, Alexander L.N.
AU - Oh, Jeong Eun
AU - Pineda Castro, Marco A.
AU - Salgueiro-Gonzalez, Noelia
AU - Subedi, Bikram
AU - Shao, Xue Ting
AU - Yargeau, Viviane
AU - Zuccato, Ettore
AU - Gerber, Cobus
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors sincerely thank the wastewater treatment plant operators and local municipal personnel for providing samples for this work. The authors would like to thank New Zealand Police, and South Australia Health and European Union’s Justice Programme─Drugs Policy Initiatives, EuSeME (Project Number 861602) for supporting this work. The authors would also like to thank Devin A. Bowes and Nivedita Biyani from Arizona State University for helping with the sample pickup. Authors from University Jaume I acknowledge the financial support of Generaliat Valenciana (Excellence Group Prometeo 2019/040). The authors also thank Nikolaos Rousis for his fruitful discussion when drafting the manuscript. Research reported in this publication was also supported by the Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems (CBET), Division of the National Science Foundation under Award Number 2028564. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2022/1/11
Y1 - 2022/1/11
N2 - New psychoactive substances (NPS) are compounds designed to mimic both licit and illicit drugs, and these substances are being discovered each year through forensic toxicology, drug enforcement agencies, and health authorities. However, there is limited information surrounding their international popularity. In this work, influent wastewater samples (n = 144) were collected from 25 sites in 10 countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Fiji, Italy, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, and the United States over the 2020-2021 New Year period. All samples were extracted in the country of origin then shipped and analyzed centrally at the University of South Australia using validated liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry methods. This study focused on 28 NPS stimulants, with 11 detected. The emerging substances eutylone and 3-methylmethcathinone (3-MMC) were detected most frequently and with the highest mass loads, indicating international popularity. Interestingly, the "older"generation stimulants, para-methoxyamphetamine (PMA), methylone, and mephedrone, were also detected. From the sites monitored in this work, areas in New Zealand had the highest loads of NPS stimulant consumption. Results here show that wastewater analysis can elucidate the dynamic nature of the NPS market, providing near real-time information on changing consumption patterns whose information can be used to minimize public risk.
AB - New psychoactive substances (NPS) are compounds designed to mimic both licit and illicit drugs, and these substances are being discovered each year through forensic toxicology, drug enforcement agencies, and health authorities. However, there is limited information surrounding their international popularity. In this work, influent wastewater samples (n = 144) were collected from 25 sites in 10 countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Fiji, Italy, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, and the United States over the 2020-2021 New Year period. All samples were extracted in the country of origin then shipped and analyzed centrally at the University of South Australia using validated liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry methods. This study focused on 28 NPS stimulants, with 11 detected. The emerging substances eutylone and 3-methylmethcathinone (3-MMC) were detected most frequently and with the highest mass loads, indicating international popularity. Interestingly, the "older"generation stimulants, para-methoxyamphetamine (PMA), methylone, and mephedrone, were also detected. From the sites monitored in this work, areas in New Zealand had the highest loads of NPS stimulant consumption. Results here show that wastewater analysis can elucidate the dynamic nature of the NPS market, providing near real-time information on changing consumption patterns whose information can be used to minimize public risk.
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U2 - 10.1021/acs.estlett.1c00807
DO - 10.1021/acs.estlett.1c00807
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85121044514
SN - 2328-8930
VL - 9
SP - 57
EP - 63
JO - Environmental Science and Technology Letters
JF - Environmental Science and Technology Letters
IS - 1
ER -