Pubdate: Tue, 23 Jun 2015
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2015 The Associated Press
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Gene Johnson, The Associated Press

FEDS PAYING FOR SEWAGE STUDY OF POT USE IN 2 CITIES

SEATTLE (AP) - The federal government is chipping in money for a 
three-year pilot study using sewage samples to determine levels of 
marijuana use in two Washington cities - research that could help 
answer some key questions about pot legalization, the University of 
Puget Sound announced Monday.

The National Institutes of Health has agreed to pay $120,000 so that 
Dan Burgard, an associate chemistry professor, can conduct a study 
looking at how per capita pot use changed after Washington's first 
legal pot shops opened last July.

The research, based on methods first developed by scientists in Italy 
in 2005, involves analyzing wastewater samples for levels of 
metabolites produced when the body processes drugs.

Burgard began collecting data in December 2013, after voters passed 
legalization in 2012 but eight months before legal pot shops began opening.

The upcoming study is to help determine whether the opening of pot 
shops increases a community's marijuana use, whether data from the 
wastewater correlate to what people answer in surveys about their 
marijuana use, and whether weekday or weekend marijuana use has increased.

He declined to say which two cities will be tested until the study is complete.

The research is being done in collaboration with Caleb Banta-Green, 
of the University of Washington's Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom