Profiles of illicit drug use during annual key holiday and control periods in Australia: wastewater analysis in an urban, a semi‐rural and a vacation area

Abstract

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.

Occurrence and behavior of illicit drugs and metabolites in sewage water from the Spanish Mediterranean coast (Valencia region)

“…These findings are in agreement with the works from Harman et al (2011) and Lai et al (2013a), who also reported increased use of amphetamine, methamphetamine, cocaine 10/26 and MDMA in the holiday period in Oslo region (Norway), and a vacation area in Queensland (Australia), respectively.…”

“…The possibility of performing daily sample analysis makes it feasible to have real-time and objective information on drug use of a community. Some recent studies report spatial and temporal variations in the occurrence of illicit drugs in wastewater, including holidays and "control" periods (Lai et al 2013a), or performing analysis along one year (Harman et al 2011;van Nuijs et al 2011a). Standard sampling devices are normally used to obtain 24-h composite samples, but polar organic chemical integrative samplers (POCIS) have also been used (Harman et al 2011).…”

“…Despite the limitations and uncertainties associated with sewage water analysis, interesting trends in drug use have been observed, with prominent increase related to particular celebrations (Harman et al 2011;Lai et al 2013aLai et al , 2013bvan Nuijs et al 2011a). However, the removal of these compounds by STPs during these high peaks of drug usage was not evaluated.…”

Illicit Drugs, Metabolites and Adulterants in Wastewater: Monitoring Community Drug Abuse in the Brazilian Federal District during the 2014 Soccer World Cup

“…13,14 Due to the near real-time characteristics of the WBDE approach, consumption estimates can be assessed in order to identify drug use variations according to different seasons, [15][16][17] days of a week, 16 and even recreational events. 18 Gerrity et al 19 investigated temporal variability associated with the 2009 National Football League's Super Bowl, a significant weekend for tourism in the event area, given the potential for unusual flow patterns and mass loadings of pharmaceuticals, personal care products and illicit drugs. Although results did not indicate significant effects of the Super Bowl on the loadings of many investigated compounds, the use of WBDE approach shows a slightly increase of cocaine consumption during the Super Bowl weekend.…”

Google Trends Analyses and Case Report: A Persistently Dilated Pupil in Psychedelics’ User

“…Statistical testing using Student's t-test was also carried out; LSD was the most popular psychedelic, it was even more popular than MDMA (p<0.001). Furthermore, the trends were highly oscillating, there was no particular pattern, apart from incremental changes (spikes) in the trends during the holidays in the developed countries, specifically during Christmas and the New Year celebrations (Bellis et al, 2007;Halpern and Mechem, 2001;Lai et al, 2013). LSD and MDMA appeared to be the most popular psychedelics on the surface web, while Psilocybin, Phencyclidine, Ketamine, and N,N-Dimethyltryptamine seemed to be of comparable popularity.…”