According to an article in the Washington post, the city of Fairfax is participating in a federal pilot program which will investigate whether the drug use of a city can be assessed by analyzing the sewage. Since current assessments of how many individuals in a population are using drugs rely on personal interviews, this will apparently give better estimates.

I have watched enough crime dramas to know that garbage is public domain and the police do not need a warrant to search it. I am sure that this would apply to sewage. In the future, could it be possible for police to get warrants to search your home based on random drug testing of sewers?

Really, don’t we have better things to do with our money than testing cocaine in the sewers? Does knowing how many people are doing drugs really give us a way to solve the “problem”? Will this technology really save us? [Insert big long rant here, because you know where I’m going.]