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Abstract

Australia’s world-class drug monitoring systems have difficulty gathering metrics in ruralcommunities for reasons due to, among other things, the size of the country and problemswith recruiting sufficient sample sizes. Some rural communities in data shadows (wherefew metrics on substance use exist) may benefit from wastewater analysis (‘WWA’) as ameans of estimating per capita drug consumption. Wastewater analysis could be employedwhen debates rise about the consumption of particular drugs in certain communities. Otherways to use WWA are examined, including long-term monitoring of community drugconsumption and intervention studies to test the effectiveness of health or law enforcementdrug strategies. To explore the utility of WWA, this article references media coverage ofmethylamphetamine consumption in a small Tasmanian town, Smithton, and presents theresults of the first Tasmanian WWA pilot study of methylamphetamine consumption,conducted in 2014–15.

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Prichard, J and Lai, FY and O'Brien, J and Bruno, R and Thai, P and Hall, W and Kirkbride, P and Thomas, K and Mueller, JF
Keywords:	wastewater; methamphetamine
Journal or Publication Title:	Current Issues in Criminal Justice
Publisher:	University of Sydney Law School. Institute of Criminology
ISSN:	1034-5329
Copyright Information:	Copyright 2018 the authors
Related URLs:	Google Scholar: Prichard, J UTAS Profile: Prichard, J Google Scholar: Bruno, R UTAS Profile: Bruno, R
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