New Mexico schools use wastewater testing to identify student drug use; the science is catching on in other places

Wasterwater testing can pinpoint drug use in schools
and communities. (N.M. Health Dept. photo via WP)

School administrators in New Mexico are using wastewater testing analysis to learn more about student drug use and to help inform their decisions on how to respond. "Using a technique that became popular nationally to spot Covid-19 outbreaks, New Mexico appears to be the first state to test wastewater at public high schools for a range of opioids and stimulants," reports Sara Randazzo of The Washington Post. "Initial data released since last week from more than three dozen high schools. . . included what school leaders and state officials called a surprise: cocaine use in nearly 82% of the campus communities."

Health and school officials plan to use testing results to "guide drug-prevention programs and pinpoint how to allocate resources for addiction services," Randazzo writes. "The tests aren't meant to assist in punitive measures, but to give a snapshot of campus drug use. . . . Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that has led to a surge in overdoses nationwide, and its metabolite appeared at nine of the 38 New Mexico schools. None showed a heroin presence."

Europe and Australia began deploying wastewater testing to measure illicit drug use around 2010, but the method has been slow to "catch on in the U.S.," Randazzo reports. 

New Mexico may be the first to use wastewater testing in schools; however, "communities in California, Delaware, Virginia and elsewhere started broader municipal wastewater drug-testing programs this year focused on the opioid epidemic, some of it funded by the federal government," Randazzo writes. "Drug overdoses killed more than 100,000 people in the U.S. in 2022, federal data shows, more than two-thirds of those from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids."

The wastewater testing company Biobot Analytics "is working with Marin County, an affluent area north of San Francisco, where drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for those 55 and under," Randazzo adds. "Matt Willis, Marin County's public health officer, said weekly testing over the past year helped them see in May that xylazine, a powerful horse tranquilizer that is dangerous to humans, was entering the community. . . ."