5 ms·

Just to do the Fermi problem math for fun, how much heroin is needed to reach detectability in Puget Sound? Assume 1 ppq detection rates (like many spectroscop

Just to do the Fermi problem math for fun, how much heroin is needed to reach detectability in Puget Sound? Assume 1 ppq detection rates (like many spectroscopic methods claim to do). Puget sound is 110 km^3 or 1.10E14 liters of water. That's 6.05E15 moles of water. At one ppq (1E15), you need 6.05 moles of heroin. This comes out to about 2.2 kilograms. Now in terms of doses, that's a lot of doses. But that's not a lot if a drug runner could have just tossed a single brick in to reach that concentration (or emptied a single car boot in haste).

cgb223 8y ago
But this is coming from human waste, how much of a filter does the human body act on heroin? If a person puts a gram of 100% pure heroin (another good question might be how purity affects the measurements) in to their body, how much will come out the other end? Also, from a chemistry perspective, how does water bring a solvent affect opioid molecules existing? Would the water or various things in the water break down the molecules into other non detectable molecules?
- scythe 8y ago
  According to Figure 4 on page 410, it seems that 10% of ingested heroin is excreted as morphine, the other 90% as morphine glucuronides: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wim_Van_den_Brink/publication/7196280_Population_Pharmacokinetics_of_Heroin_and_its_Major_Metabolites/links/02bfe50ec087f21de3000000.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wim_Van_den_Brink/publi... However, it is not clear if the glucuronides would be picked up by the test. Morphine glucuronides -- particularly morphine-3-glucuronide -- can hydrolyse back to morphine. It seems that the morphine molecule is largely not destroyed metabolically; the glucuronide moiety is more like a molecular "tag" that tells the kidney to get rid of something.
- fanzhang 8y ago
  True. So if we presume all the opoids are from human bodily waste, we would need divide by 10% (the amount excreted out): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxycodone#Metabolism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxycodone#Metabolism Probably the molecule does break up with a certain half life, either due to sun, or other animals metabolising it, etc. Then that 2.2 kg brick needs to be replaced once every two half-lives. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991390/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991390/ Gives really hand-wavy half-life of many drugs in the environment as about 500 days, so the brick needs to be replaced every 1000 days. Also 1 ppq is the lower bound. I think 1 ppt is quite reasonable for many methods though, so that can multiply the limit by 1000x. All the factors above can increase the threshold amount of opoids, but here are some factors that can decrease it substantially: There are people who dump unused drugs in, so that needs no attenuation factor. Also, mussels are filter feeders, and oxycodone might accumulate in them substantially more (like 1000x+) than the background. Finally, where they collected the mussels is probably correlated with sewage drains due to ease of human access, so the effective "volume of distribution" can be way less than the 110 km^3. All that is to say, the real statistics are in the overdose calls for opoids. The headline is still an interesting cocktail-party line, but probably should be taken as a statement just by itself.
- BookmarkSaver 8y ago
  What if someone flushed a bunch of it down a toilet raw, for whatever reason? Same location for concentration as excrement, and honestly makes even more sense for disposal than actually throwing it into the sound directly.
- whuuuuhh 8y ago
  how does water bring a solvent affect opioid molecules existing? How does water... bring a solvent... ...affect... “opioid molecules” ...existing. ... I, uh, I really don’t know.
the8472 8y ago
mussels are not in equilibrium with their environment. they are pretty good at concentrating many kinds of pollutants. so you don't need such a high concentration in water to achieve the same concentration in them.
- ams6110 8y ago
  Mussels will also flourish around the waste water outlet pipes, because there are a lot of nutrients in the water there. Where they found the opioid-containing mussels could make a big difference. I didn't read the article so maybe this was addressed.
  - ksenzee 8y ago
    They didn't just find them. They placed clean mussels specifically for this test, then went back for them.
    - loeg 8y ago
      Sure. The question is still: did they place them directly adjacent to treated wastewater outflow?
- amelius 8y ago
  > they are pretty good at concentrating many kinds of pollutants Does this mean mussels are not a good food source to begin with? Is it better to avoid them, regardless of origin?
BurningFrog 8y ago
So would it be economical to extract heroin from the sea water? Assume highest street prices.

cgb223 8y ago

But this is coming from human waste, how much of a filter does the human body act on heroin? If a person puts a gram of 100% pure heroin (another good question might be how purity affects the measurements) in to their body, how much will come out the other end? Also, from a chemistry perspective, how does water bring a solvent affect opioid molecules existing? Would the water or various things in the water break down the molecules into other non detectable molecules?

scythe 8y ago
According to Figure 4 on page 410, it seems that 10% of ingested heroin is excreted as morphine, the other 90% as morphine glucuronides: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wim_Van_den_Brink/publication/7196280_Population_Pharmacokinetics_of_Heroin_and_its_Major_Metabolites/links/02bfe50ec087f21de3000000.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wim_Van_den_Brink/publi... However, it is not clear if the glucuronides would be picked up by the test. Morphine glucuronides -- particularly morphine-3-glucuronide -- can hydrolyse back to morphine. It seems that the morphine molecule is largely not destroyed metabolically; the glucuronide moiety is more like a molecular "tag" that tells the kidney to get rid of something.
fanzhang 8y ago
True. So if we presume all the opoids are from human bodily waste, we would need divide by 10% (the amount excreted out): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxycodone#Metabolism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxycodone#Metabolism Probably the molecule does break up with a certain half life, either due to sun, or other animals metabolising it, etc. Then that 2.2 kg brick needs to be replaced once every two half-lives. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991390/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991390/ Gives really hand-wavy half-life of many drugs in the environment as about 500 days, so the brick needs to be replaced every 1000 days. Also 1 ppq is the lower bound. I think 1 ppt is quite reasonable for many methods though, so that can multiply the limit by 1000x. All the factors above can increase the threshold amount of opoids, but here are some factors that can decrease it substantially: There are people who dump unused drugs in, so that needs no attenuation factor. Also, mussels are filter feeders, and oxycodone might accumulate in them substantially more (like 1000x+) than the background. Finally, where they collected the mussels is probably correlated with sewage drains due to ease of human access, so the effective "volume of distribution" can be way less than the 110 km^3. All that is to say, the real statistics are in the overdose calls for opoids. The headline is still an interesting cocktail-party line, but probably should be taken as a statement just by itself.
BookmarkSaver 8y ago
What if someone flushed a bunch of it down a toilet raw, for whatever reason? Same location for concentration as excrement, and honestly makes even more sense for disposal than actually throwing it into the sound directly.
whuuuuhh 8y ago
how does water bring a solvent affect opioid molecules existing? How does water... bring a solvent... ...affect... “opioid molecules” ...existing. ... I, uh, I really don’t know.

the8472 8y ago

mussels are not in equilibrium with their environment. they are pretty good at concentrating many kinds of pollutants. so you don't need such a high concentration in water to achieve the same concentration in them.

ams6110 8y ago
Mussels will also flourish around the waste water outlet pipes, because there are a lot of nutrients in the water there. Where they found the opioid-containing mussels could make a big difference. I didn't read the article so maybe this was addressed.
- ksenzee 8y ago
  They didn't just find them. They placed clean mussels specifically for this test, then went back for them.
  - loeg 8y ago
    Sure. The question is still: did they place them directly adjacent to treated wastewater outflow?
amelius 8y ago
> they are pretty good at concentrating many kinds of pollutants Does this mean mussels are not a good food source to begin with? Is it better to avoid them, regardless of origin?

BurningFrog 8y ago

So would it be economical to extract heroin from the sea water? Assume highest street prices.