While the peak holiday season in Australia is perceived as a period of increased drug use, this is not uniform across all drugs and areas. Substantial declines in drug use in the semi-rural area contrasted with substantial increases in urban and vacation areas. Per capita drug consumption in the vacation area was equivalent to that in the urban area, implying that these locations merit particular attention for drug use monitoring and harm minimisation measures.
Aims To discuss ethical issues that may arise in using WWA to monitor illicit drug use in the general population and in entertainment precincts, prisons, schools and work‐places.
Method Review current applications of WWA and identify ethical and social issues that may be raised with current and projected future uses of this method.
Results Wastewater analysis (WWA) of drug residues is a promising method of monitoring illicit drug use that may overcome some limitations of other monitoring methods. When used for monitoring purposes in large populations, WWA does not raise major ethical concerns because individuals are not identified and the prospects of harming residents of catchment areas are remote. When WWA is used in smaller catchment areas (entertainment venues, prisons, schools or work‐places) their results could, possibly, indirectly affect the occupants adversely. Researchers will need to take care in reporting their results to reduce media misreporting. Fears about possible use of WWA for mass individual surveillance by drug law enforcement officials are unlikely to be realized, but will need to be addressed because they may affect public support adversely for this type of research.
Conclusions Using wastewater analysis to monitor illicit drug use in large populations does not raise major ethical concerns, but researchers need to minimize possible adverse consequences in studying smaller populations, such as workers, prisoners and students.
Wastewater-based epidemiology is a feasible method for objectively evaluating the geographic, temporal and weekly profiles of nicotine and alcohol consumption in different communities nationally.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.