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By Yoon Ja-young
Illicit drugs, including methamphetamine, were detected in wastewater nationwide, implying that they may be in wider use than previously thought. The estimated per capita consumption, however, is still far lower than the figures in Australia or the EU, which have been monitoring their wastewater since a few years ago.
According to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, various drugs, including methamphetamine, phendimetrazene, phentermine and methylphenidate, were detected in all 57 sewage treatment plants nationwide that it monitored from April 2020 to this April.
Propofol, ecstasy and amphetamine were detected in at least 20 of the sewage treatment plants, and a few of them included cocaine, ketamine and LSD.
The ministry has been analyzing the wastewater from the sewage treatment plants in order to measure and interpret drug use within the population, which will also allow officials to estimate per capita drug use. It is the first time for the country to try making this estimation with wastewater. The ministry plans to provide the investigators with the data on wastewater analysis and strengthen monitoring of sewage treatment plants that had a high proportion of illicit drugs detected there.
Use of these substances has been making headlines, including dozens of teenagers caught receiving narcotic painkillers from clinics. A Porsche driver, who caused a multiple-vehicle collision in Busan's tourist district of Haeundae while under the influence of drugs last year, was recently sentenced to five years in February.
It is estimated that 18 milligrams of methamphetamine was used per 1,000 people in Korea, which is 1.5 percent of Australia's estimate of 1,500 milligrams and around half of the EU's 35 milligrams.
The estimated cocaine use in Korea was 0.38 milligrams per 1,000 people, compared to Australia's 600 milligrams and the EU's 532 milligrams.
There are, however, restrictions in these estimates, as there could be drugs dumped directly into wastewater without entering human body, the ministry noted. It added that precipitation at the time when the wastewater was collected could have affected the per capita calculation.
