Refining the excretion factors of methadone and codeine for wastewater analysis - Combining data from pharmacokinetic and wastewater studies.

Analysing drug residues in wastewater (wastewater analysis) to monitor the consumption of those drugs in the population has become a complementary method to epidemiological surveys. In this method, the excretion factor of a drug (or the percentage of drug metabolites excreted through urine) is a critical parameter for the back-estimation of the consumption of a drug. However, this parameter is usually derived from a small database of human pharmacokinetic studies.

Monitoring substance use in prisons: Assessing the potential value of wastewater analysis.

Prison substance use is a major concern for prison authorities and the wider community. Australia has responded to this problem by implementing the National Corrections Drug Strategy. Across Australia, the true extent of prison substance use cannot be determined.

Challenges and opportunities in using wastewater analysis to measure drug use in a small prison facility.

Introduction And Aims: Wastewater 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.