Drug trafficking

What Drugs Are Most Popular Globally? Scientists Screened Sewage for Years to Find Out

Scientists spent years screening sewage from some 60 million people for cocaine, amphetamines, and MDMA to build a comprehensive wastewater map of illicit drug use in more than 30 countries around the world.

According to the study, which was published Wednesday in the journal Addiction, cocaine use is on the rise across Europe, methamphetamine is most prevalent in North America and Australasia, and the Netherlands had the highest rate of MDMA use.

“This is the largest wastewater‐based epidemiology study ever performed in terms of cities (120) and countries (37) involved and of the monitoring duration (2011–17),” said the team, which was co-led by Iria González-Mariño, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Salamanca in Spain.

“The extensive data set obtained for cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, and MDMA showed a comprehensive picture of spatial and temporal trends of use,” González-Mariño and her colleagues said in the study.

Sampling wastewater for residue from drugs has become an increasingly popular method to track patterns in the global illicit drug market over the past decade. Previous studies have focused on drug use in select cities or during public events, such as the 2017 total solar eclipse, but González-Mariño’s and her colleagues took an international approach.