Impact of COVID-19 Controls on the Use of Illicit Drugs and Alcohol in Australia

[NNadir]

I'm catching up on some reading and came across this paper: Impact of COVID-19 Controls on the Use of Illicit Drugs and Alcohol in Australia (Richard Bade, Benjamin J. Tscharke, Jake W. O’Brien, Saranzaya Magsarjav, Melissa Humphries, Maulik Ghetia, Kevin V. Thomas, Jochen F. Mueller, Jason M. White, and Cobus Gerber, Environmental Science & Technology Letters 2021 8 (9), 799-804)

Drug use, and this includes the use of prescription medicines and OTC remedies as well as illicit drugs can be monitored by wastewater analysis using LC/MS/MS, a very sensitive analytical technique.

In Australia, this is routinely done. Apparently the use of MDMA (street name Ecstasy) peaks after weekend parties.

I don't have time or inclination to discuss this paper in any detail, but I thought it would be fun to post some graphics, one of which is available at the abstract and has no caption. (The full paper is behind a firewall.)





The caption:

Figure 1. Estimated consumption of (A) alcohol, (B) cannabis, (C) cocaine, (D) MDMA, and (E) methamphetamine across Australia from 2016 to 2020, with emphasis on February to June 2020. Abbreviations: ACT, Australian Capital Territory; NSW, New South Wales; NT, Northern Territory; QLD, Queensland; SA, South Australia; TAS, Tasmania; VIC, Victoria; WA, Western Australia. Some maxima (indicated by ^) were not included in the figure to better show the 2020 trends. An asterisk indicates statistically significant differences in April and June 2020 compared to previous years (p < 0.05; red for lower, black for higher).

I'm personally not into drug use, although I do occasionally have a glass of beer or wine, and last night had Champagne while watching on TV the New Year being rung in by a largely maskless crowd of young people partying in Florida at a superspreader event on NBC, cheered on by Miley Cyrus. I have no idea if any of them were using MDMA (I have no idea why my family had that on, but who cares? It was the first time in my life I heard Miley Cyrus perform. Meh...)

The paper's interesting I think.

I wish you a happy and prosperous New Year.

[TexasTowelie]

1. It looks like more people were getting high on weed to relieve the stress

and while under lockdowns.