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On the Frontier: Analytical Chemistry and the Occurrence of Illicit Drugs in Surface Waters in the USA.
Citation:
JONES-LEPP, T. L., D. A. Alvarez, AND B. Loganathan. On the Frontier: Analytical Chemistry and the Occurrence of Illicit Drugs in Surface Waters in the USA. Chapter 9, Castiglioni and Zuccato (ed.), Illicit Drugs in the Environment: Occurrence, Analysis, and Fate using Mass Spectrometry. John Wiley & Sons Incorporated, New York, NY, , 171-188, (2011).
Impact/Purpose:
In the United States (US), Snyder et al. (2001) reported the presence of hydrocodone, codeine, and diazepam (valium), in a stream entering into Lake Mead, Nevada.(Snyder et al., 2001) While these drugs are not considered illicit substances, they are considered controlled substances, compounds that the Drug and Enforcement Agency (DEA) lists as schedule III and IV drugs, as substances for potential abuse. (DEA, http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/ abuse/1-csa.htm) Then for the first time the presence of an illicit substance, methamphetamine, was reported by Khan and Ongerth, in wastewater effluent from a large US city in California and announced publicly at the 2003 National Ground Water conference.(Khan and Ongerth, 2003) Jones-Lepp et al. (2004) reported for the first time in the peer-reviewed literature the detection of two illicit drugs, methamphetamine and methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA, Ecstasy), collected from wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent streams in Nevada and South Carolina, US.(Jones-Lepp et al., 2004).
Description:
While environmental scientists focused on industrial and agricultural pollutants (e.g. PCBs, volatile organics, dioxins, benzene, DDT) in the 1970’s and 1980’s, overlooked was the subtle connection between personal human activities, such as drug consumption, and the subsequent release of anthropogenic drugs and drug metabolites into the natural environment. There was evidence of this possible connection nearly 30 years ago when Garrison et al. (1976) reported the detection of clofibric acid (the bioactive metabolite from a series of serum triglyceride-lowering drugs) in a groundwater reservoir that had been recharged with treated wastewater.(Garrison et al. 1976) A year later Hignite and Azarnoff (1977) reported finding aspirin, caffeine, and nicotine in wastewater effluent, and then Watts et al. (1983) reported the presence of three pharmaceuticals (erythromycin, tetracycline, and theophylline), bisphenol A and other suspected endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) in a river water sample.(Hignite and Azarnoff, 1977; Watts et al. 1983) Following those three journal articles there, nothing was published for nearly a decade regarding the drug-human-environmental connection. Renewed interest in the subject was reported by Daughton and Ternes’s seminal and authoritative work published in 1999.(Daughton and Ternes, 1999) Since the 1999 publication of Daughton and Ternes’s, the number of publications from the scientific community regarding the human drug consumption and environmental interaction have increased from two publications in the1980’s to currently over 300 scientific publications per year. Most of these publications report methods for the detection of common pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter (OTCs) drugs. However, very few publications have dealt with the occurrence, transport, and fate of illicit drugs in the environment.