You're about to get busted.

Thursday 8/23/2007
2:06 p.m.

The alarm goes off. You roll out of bed and stumble to the bathroom. You relieve yourself of any excess liquid you may have held during the night. Guess what? You just submitted to a drug test. Ha ha.

According to a study conducted by Oregon State University, researchers have figured out how to give an entire community a drug test using just a teaspoon of wastewater from a city’s sewer plant.

While the test isn't designed to single out any one person as a drug user, it will help federal law enforcement and other agencies track the spread of dangerous drugs, like meth, crack, speed, and any other nighttime snack across the country.

Scientists tested 10 unnamed American cities for remnants of drugs, both legal and illegal, from wastewater streams. They were able to show that they could get a good snapshot of what people are taking.

They are calling it a “community urinalysis.” To me, that just sounds really disgusting. Community and urine should never be phrased together.


Test results
One of the early results of the new study showed big differences in methamphetamine use city to city. One urban area with a gambling industry had meth levels more than five times higher than other cities. Yet methamphetamine levels were virtually nonexistent in some smaller Midwestern locales.

The "drug" that American consume most is caffeine. This is off the subject, but I stopped drinking lattes a week or so ago. Do you know how hard that is? I mean, there is nothing better than a Grande Iced Sugar Free Non-Fat Caramel Latte. It's been really hard. Why did I quit? They make you fat. It's a fact. Non-Fat is not Non-Calorie. So, now I just drink a Grande Iced Americano. Three shots of espresso and a little hot water. No cow juice to get in the way of all of the lovely drug I crave. Oh caffiene, I love you so much. I can't imagine my life without you. Let's get married and stay caffeinated together for the rest of eternity.

Oh yeah, the study...

So, it's pretty simple. Everybody has to go to the bathroom. Nearly every drug — legal and illicit — that people take leaves the body. That waste goes into toilets and then into wastewater treatment plants.

“Wastewater facilities are wonderful places to understand what humans consume and excrete,” Field said.

In the study presented Tuesday, one teaspoon of untreated sewage water from each of the cities was tested for 15 different drugs. Field said researchers can’t calculate how many people in a town are using drugs.

So, when your taking that toke, snortin' that rail or shooting whatever you freaks shoot, remember... you may be taking part in a community urinalysist. (That's so gross.)

Source:© 2007 The Associated Press