http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2014/sep/24/spokane-pot-use-measurable-by-thc-levels-in/?print-friendly "Spokane pot use measurable by THC levels in wastewater, panel told Kip Hill The Spokesman-Review Tags:drugsI-502marijuanasewageSpokane City Counciltesting The most important numbers to Spokane city officials looking for accurate data about residents’ marijuana use may be one and two. “Nobody can lie about what’s showing up in the sewage,” said American Civil Liberties Union attorney Alison Holcomb to Spokane City Council’s Marijuana Policy Subcommittee on Tuesday when suggesting that the city test its wastewater to find out how much pot is being used. Representatives of schools, law enforcement agencies, nonprofits and local government met to discuss what information needs to be collected as recreational marijuana enters its fourth month of legal sales and policymakers look to maximize revenue while ensuring public safety. A list of figures that community members said they need to collect includes pot sales, developments in the tourism industry and trends of use among minors. Testing sewage, which can be frozen for later inspection, would provide only general use figures, not broken down by age, said Holcomb, the architect of Initiative 502, which legalized recreational use of marijuana. But Councilman Jon Snyder showed support for the idea of testing wastewater. “What an awesome new use for our sewage,” he said, to laughter from assembled stakeholders. Holcomb said measuring levels of THC – the psychoactive element in marijuana – present in sewage provides a more accurate level of trends than self-reporting on surveys, which can be swayed by attitudes and fears of consequences. Researchers in the state already have developed testing methods, she said, citing reports published by researchers at the University of Washington and the University of Puget Sound targeting college students. Daniel Burgard, a University of Puget Sound chemistry professor, has previously published studies examining traces of amphetamines in sewage collected at colleges during times of high stress, such as final exam weeks. He is collecting samples from multiple sources across Washington to establish trends in marijuana use following the onset of recreational sales earlier this summer, according to news reports. Burgard, working with other University of Puget Sound researchers, found a significant difference between self-reporting of stimulant use by college students and the measured amounts in campus sewage in an article published in May in the journal Addictive Behaviors. The relatively new field of drug testing sewage has spawned a cottage industry of ethicists who debate the legality of what amounts to a mass drug test. A paper published in the journal Addiction, often cited by the community as an ethical basis for conducting wastewater analysis, explored many of the major concerns, including invasion of privacy and fears of legal consequences or stigmatization. The authors concluded the potential benefits outweighed the harm. The analysis “has considerable potential to serve the public good,” the authors wrote. They cited the unlikelihood law enforcement would pay the steep fees needed for testing in order to prove drug cases and the inability of current technology to determine the single source of illicit drugs. Spokane wastewater director Dale Arnold said the city’s sewage hasn’t ever been tested for THC. Arnold said he would check with a lab this week to find out how possible it is to get readings for THC from wastewater. But he suspects it might be difficult. “A large portion of that wastewater doesn’t come out of human beings,” he said. Jonathan Brunt contributed to this report." I was just reading some news from around the area, when I stumbled on this article. A literal crock of shit here!
Have they asked themselves how many people are going to go shit in the woods and piss in the yard as a result of the testing.:roffl: How can they tell if 1 kid's mom flushed his bag of weed or 15 tokers took a crap. Sounds like they're desperate to find something to use to justify their agenda, whatever it is. Be Cool CG
It sets a precedent to testing people's individual septic tanks/sewage lines. If an entire city gets tested, then how long until individuals have cops showing up at their doors over their waste. It's just as easy for them to test individual homes and try to covertly pinpoint the "druggies" of the area.
OOOooooooohhh. Hadn't thought about that. S it'd be like cops going through your garbage once it's put out for pick up. Once you flush it's public domain......fuck!:321fu: Of course digging 4 feet down and tapping into the sewer line exiting a specific property might be a little prohibitive. Um.....officer? Why are you standing on the sidewalk in front of my home with a backhoe, 6 city workers and a THC test kit? Oh, you're testing my shit for THC? Here's a fresh sample, I'm gonna go pack and move while you dig that hole. asssit:
Yes, it does seem like it could be a stretch currently. Ideas like that are easy enough to come up with once the ball is already rolling that direction. Technology for detecting such things could eventually be used, though. We never thought cops would be able to see into our vehicles from the outside... and now they have x-ray cameras, like at airports, in their cars. EDIT: Also, there are ways of setting up neighborhood construction zones to fit this function. The city would just say they need to do routine maintenance on the sewers/ septic tanks and they have their in. Off duty cops have been participating in random roadside drug and alcohol blockades, so they could just dress as work crews and blend in in this scenario.
Oh no....don't get me wrong. It's way toooooo easy to imagine some narcotard cop thinking this is great and some baby saving crazed politician funding research to attache DNA analysis to turd samples that show positive for drugs then cross reference those to some freaky scary database. Or some other similarly insanely outlandish idea. If we can conceive it, LEO and our government are already working on it without so much as a shit whether it should be done or not.. That much I believe to be true.
