Like many alcoholics and addicts, I’ve done my fair share of handing over urine samples to unimpressed people in hospitals, jails, and detox centers. (Stop me if this sounds like I’m bragging.) Sometimes I’ve shrugged it off; sometimes I’ve actually dreaded the results. Mostly, I was just afraid of the truth I’d be revealing about myself. Many researchers, according to a recent article, are literally plumbing the depths for similar truths about their cities’ drug and alcohol problems. But are the risks to privacy worth the data?
Toilet-Testing Isn’t Actually New
The concept of analyzing wastewater for drug-use patterns is nothing new. Toxicologists have been doing this for decades, turning up all the usual suspects—cocaine, heroin, meth, cannabis—in the process. “Sewer epidemiology” isn’t some sexy term for the worst CSI job ever—it’s the research method that follows what cities flush down the toilet. Through this process, scientists can potentially map out an entire city’s illegal drug-use fingerprint. The approach is really specific, too: a 2014 study demonstrated how researchers can accurately zero in on the drug intake at a specific nightclub.
Why Plumbing the Depths is an Amazing Idea
Here’s the good news: Studying a city’s sewage means no more playing Columbo when it comes to drug habits. The guesswork is gone. It’s no secret that alcoholics don’t like telling on themselves. I don’t know how many times I sat perched on my doctor’s exam table, shaking my head when asked if I drank too much. I played innocence to perfection. At my worst, no one—especially a physician—was going to get a straight answer from me about my alcohol consumption. I lied to myself as much as I lied to other people about how much red wine I was putting down on a nightly basis. No questionnaire is ever going to give researchers or lawmakers the hard data they need about drugs and drinking. Hell, they’re already working with slippery details. After all, when honesty fails, memory isn’t far behind.
By studying wastewater, researchers have a virtually limitless flow of real-time data to work with. The concept is beautifully simple—almost like something out of the movie Minority Report. You can almost envision a future where you could get ahead of drug abuse problems. Near where I live in Central Ohio, a number of towns are plagued with heroin and painkiller problems. If these towns began running aggressive anti-drug campaigns, bolstering community watch programs and mobilizing task forces, you could analyze the wastewater afterward to see if those efforts were working. You could also use similar data to target where drug clinics might prove useful. Sociologists could correlate drug abuse patterns with income data. Law enforcement could focus in on specific neighborhoods…
You see where this is going.
Why Plumbing the Depths is a Horrific Idea
The last time I was drug-tested for a job, a humorless man in too-tight scrubs studied me as I peed into a cup. There was no anonymity about it. It was all business. That’s probably why the “sewer epidemiology” approach unsettles me. It’s not just one person who’s submitting a sample. It’s everyone. In theory, studying wastewater for research’s sake is as intriguing as it is provocative. In fact, what the article leaves out is probably its most fascinating implication: while toxicologists could diagram specific patterns of illicit drug use, they’d also be able to sketch the same stories about prescription drugs. It’s easy to get caught up in how someone could pinpoint MDMA use by nightclub, but it’s a whole different story to think that you could trace Oxycodone prescription abuse by ZIP code.
Also, drug-testing entire cities, not individuals, calls a lot of ethics into question. When I’m applying for a job, drug testing comes with the territory. It’s just part of the gig; I know what to expect. That said, having thousands of people unwittingly subjecting themselves to study doesn’t seem right. A 2011 NPR report said it only takes a teaspoon of wastewater to tell an entire city’s drinking and drugging habits. To me, that’s an insidiously small number—such a small pinprick that we’d never notice the amount of confidential information we’re bleeding out. It’s like having Humorless Lab Tech constantly watching and knowing what we’re doing to ourselves, 24/7. Just because someone can monitor our habits doesn’t mean they should.
It seems dangerously irresponsible to take nightclub-specific results, for example, and make sweeping generalizations about drug behaviors. That’s like saying Kevin Federline’s CD put Tower Records out of business. (Probably not entirely untrue.)
Additionally, the methodology seems inherently flawed: it only captures tried-and-true drugs. From what I can tell, it can’t (yet) find designer drugs, which makes any results curiously incomplete.
Are Privacy and Anonymity Just (Sewage) Pipe Dreams Now?
People drink and drug to escape. They don’t abuse substances to look at themselves in the mirror seconds afterward, let alone have others immediately use that information to judge, scrutinize or, worse yet, take action. Drug and alcohol abuse is as private as it gets. Furthermore, I’m not sure anyone—myself included—is really prepared to see what widespread truths will emerge under the black light. Through science, we’re flushing privacy and anonymity right down the tubes.
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