First international multidisciplinary conference on detecting illicit drugs in wastewater – promotional brochure

Wastewater analysis is a rapidly developing scientific discipline with the potential for monitoring real-time population-level trends in illicit drug use. Given the relevance and importance of this emerging field, the EMCDDA has embarked on a number of related initiatives to be developed in 2013.

Among these is ‘Testing the waters’, the first international multidisciplinary conference on illicit drugs and wastewater to take place in Lisbon in May 2013. The conference will assess the state of the art in this emerging discipline, consolidate research findings and identify a common approach and set of methodologies for wastewater analysis and monitoring. It will combine the perspectives of analytical chemistry, physiology, biochemistry, sewage engineering, spatial epidemiology, statistics and conventional drug epidemiology.