Epidemiologia de esgoto como ferramenta para estimativa do consumo de maconha

Abstract

Drug use monitoring in the Mato Grosso state is done on questionnaires and apprehension rates, which can lead to inaccurate conclusions. Therefore, it is necessary to use more effective methods for effective interventions. Sewage epidemiology allows the determination of the consumption of illicit drugs from the determination of the concentration of drugs and their metabolites present in samples of raw sewage, the percentage of excretion of each metabolite and/or unchanged drug, the inlet flow into the sewage treatment plant (STP) and the number of people served by the investigated STP. Thus, this has been a tool for tracing the profile of drug consumption in a given region, enabling the rapid identification of hot spots of use; and evaluate the efficiency of preventive measures such as education and surveillance. This review presents the works described in the literature using raw sewage epidemiology to estimate marijuana (Cannabis sativa) consumption, highlighting the analytical procedures used for sampling, instrumental determination of the presence and concentration of marijuana and its metabolites in sewage samples, the validation parameters of the methods used and their application in estimating the consumption of a community in a given city or region. Most of the reported studies perform the determination of cannabis through pre-concentration in solid phase extraction (SPE), followed by analytical determination by liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The concentrations found described in the reviewed studies for marijuana and its metabolites vary greatly, due to differences in the development of methodology and the location where the analysis ware performed, which are subject to several other factors. On the other hand, the values for the consumption rate in terms of mg/day/1000 people, presented, for the most part, values greater than 100 mg/day/1000 people. Furthermore, these studies prove that sewage epidemiology can reliably be used to confirm patterns and trends in marijuana use.