Sewage drug testing shows that people in the U.S. party much harder than they say they do, a study published last week found.
Chemists from Murray State University in Kentucky wanted to gather data that accurately reflected drug use among U.S. communities, but they had their work cut out for them.
When it comes to drugs, there are not many reliable ways for researchers to test to see exactly how much people are consuming.
Few people would openly admit that they were taking drugs, making it impossible for experts to obtain accurate data.
Which is why researchers decided to turn to the sewers, where results cannot lie.
The team from Murray State calculated drug use from two separate communities in the western part of Kentucky by testing the wastewater, Quartz noted.
Their findings, which were published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, noted a definite uptick in drug use during special events such as July 4th and the 2017 solar eclipse.
Researchers also found much higher concentrations of amphetamine and methamphetamine than previously thought while discovering traces of methadone and morphine, two opioids, as well.
This is not the first time that researchers have used this method to test for illicit drug use in communities.
Bikram Subedi, who led the study, previously applied a similar technique to communities nearby Albany, New York, Gizmodo noted.
"The conventional approach to assess community drug usage in the U.S. takes months or years," Subedi said in a statement.
This technique however, is far more cost effective and efficient and could be beneficial amid the opioid crises currently gripping the U.S.
More than 115 people die each day from an overdose of opioids in the country and officials have noted that the use of such drugs was causing a serious national crisis that is impacting public health as well as the social and economic welfare of the U.S., the National Institute of Drug Abuse noted.
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