RT Journal Article
T1 The embodiment of wastewater data for the estimation of illicit drug consumption in Spain
A1 Bijlsma, Lubertus
A1 Picó, Yolanda
A1 Andreu, Vicente
A1 Celma, Alberto
A1 Estévez-Danta, Andrea
A1 González Mariño, Iria
A1 Hernández, Félix
A1 López de Alda, Miren
A1 López-García, Ester
A1 Marcé, Rosa María
A1 Miró, Manuel
A1 Montes Goyanes, Rosa
A1 Pérez de San Román-Landa, Unai
A1 Pitarch, Elena
A1 Pocurull, Eva
A1 Postigo, Cristina
A1 Prieto Sobrino, Ailette
A1 Rico, Andreu
A1 Rodil Rodríguez, María del Rosario
A1 Valcárcel, Yolanda
A1 Ventura, Mireia
A1 Quintana Álvarez, José Benito
K1 Wastewater-based epidemiology
K1 Chiral analysis
K1 Drugs of abuse
K1 National drug monitoring
K1 Addiction
K1 Spain
AB Data obtained from wastewater analysis can provide rapid and complementary insights in illicit drug consumption at community level. Within Europe, Spain is an important country of transit of both cocaine and cannabis. The quantity of seized drugs and prevalence of their use rank Spain at the top of Europe. Hence, the implementation of a wastewater monitoring program at national level would help to get better understanding of spatial differences and trends in use of illicit drugs. In this study, a national wastewater campaign was performed for the first time to get more insight on the consumption of illicit drugs within Spain. The 13 Spanish cities monitored cover approximately 6 million inhabitants (12.8% of the Spanish population). Untreated wastewater samples were analyzed for urinary biomarkers of amphetamine, methamphetamine, MDMA, cocaine, and cannabis. In addition, weekend samples were monitored for 17 new psychoactive substances. Cannabis and cocaine are the most consumed drugs in Spain, but geographical variations showed, for instance, comparatively higher levels of methamphetamine in Barcelona and amphetamine in Bilbao, with about 1-fold higher consumption of these two substances in such metropolitan areas. For amphetamine, an enantiomeric profiling was performed in order to assure the results were due to consumption and not to illegal dumping of production residues. Furthermore, different correction factors for the excretion of cannabis were used to compare consumption estimations. All wastewater results were compared with previously reported data, national seizure data and general population survey data, were a reasonable agreement was found. Daily and yearly drug consumption were extrapolated to the entire Spanish population with due precautions because of the uncertainty associated. These data was further used to estimate the retail drug market, where for instance cocaine illicit consumption alone was calculated to contribute to 0.2–0.5% of the Spanish gross domestic product (ca. 3000–6000 million Euro/year)
PB Elsevier
SN 0048-9697
YR 2021
FD 2021
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/26146
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/26146
LA eng
NO Science of the Total Environment, 2021, 772, 144794
NO This study was supported by MINECO/AEI projects (CTM2016-81935-REDT, CTM2017-84763-C3-2-R, CTM2017-84763-C3-1-R, CTM2017-84763-C3-3-R, RTI2018-097158-B-C31 and CTM2017-90890-REDT), MICINN project (CEX2018-000794-S), Galician Council of Culture, Education and Universities (ED481D-2017/003, ED431C-2017/36 and ED481A-2020/258), cofounded by FEDER/ERDF
DS Minerva
RD 24 abr 2026