ArticleDrug and alcohol review2016
Challenges and opportunities in using wastewater analysis to measure drug use in a small prison facility.
Article in Drug and alcohol review, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 39 citations in OpenAlex.
- NPS detection in prison: A systematic literature review of use, drug form, and analytical approaches.Drug testing and analysis · 2022Pooled it
- Near-source wastewater surveillance as a non-invasive tool for disease detection in prisons.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Waxy- or Putty-Like Materials as a Novel Drug Preparation for Synthetic Cannabinoid Receptor Agonists: Detection in Prisons and In Vitro Cannabinoid Receptor Activity.Drug testing and analysis · 2025Article
- Psychiatric and legal considerations for ketamine treatment within prison settings.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Wastewater analysis for new psychoactive substances and cocaine and cannabis in a Northern Ireland Prison.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Analysis of 39 drugs and metabolites, including 8 glucuronide conjugates, in an upstream wastewater network via HPLC-MS/MS.Journal of chromatography. B, Analytical technologies in the biomedical and life sciences · 2021Article
- Mining chemical information in Swedish wastewaters for simultaneous assessment of population consumption, treatment efficiency and environmental discharge of illicit drugs.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Wastewater analysis reveals urban, suburban, and rural spatial patterns of illicit drug use in Dalian, China.Environmental science and pollution research international · 2021Article
- Interpol review of controlled substances 2016-2019.Forensic science international. Synergy · 2020Review
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
INTRODUCTION AND
aimsWastewater analysis (WWA) is intended to be a direct and objective method of measuring substance use in large urban populations. It has also been used to measure prison substance use in two previous studies. The application of WWA in this context has raised questions as to how best it might be used to measure illicit drug use in prisons, and whether it can also be used to measure prescription misuse. We applied WWA to a small regional prison to measure the use of 12 licit and illicit substances. We attempted to measure the non-medical use of methadone and buprenorphine and to compare our findings with the results of the prison's mandatory drug testing (MDT). DESIGN AND
methodsRepresentative daily composite samples were collected for two periods of 12 consecutive days in May to July 2013 and analysed for 18 drug metabolites. Prescription data and MDT results were obtained from the prison and compared with the substance use estimates calculated from WWA data.
resultsDaily use of methamphetamine, methadone, buprenorphine and codeine was detected, while sporadic detection of ketamine and methylone was also observed. Overall buprenorphine misuse appeared to be greater than methadone misuse. DISCUSSION AND
conclusionsCompared with MDT, WWA provides a more comprehensive picture of prison substance use. WWA also has the potential to measure the misuse of medically prescribed substances. However, a great deal of care must be exercised in quantifying the usage of any substance in small populations, such as in prisons.
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