Assessing cocaine use patterns in the Brazilian Capital by wastewater-based epidemiology

ABSTRACT

The levels of cocaine (COC) and its metabolites benzoylecgonine (BE) and cocaethylene (COE) in wastewater samples from Brasilia, Brazil, were determined using liquid chromatography coupled to hybrid quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The former metabolite was used to estimate cocaine consumption using a country-tuned correction factor that considers BE excretion rates for different routes of administration as well as the fraction of crack users in Brazil. A day-to-day analysis during a week indicates higher cocaine use in weekends with peaks on Sunday in both southern (7385 ± 121 mg day⁻¹ 1000 inhab⁻¹) and northern (3566 ± 171 mg day⁻¹ 1000 inhab⁻¹) areas of Brasilia. A significant high cocaine use was also observed in the Carnival Day of 2018 (6229 ± 219 mg day⁻¹ 1000 inhab⁻¹). COE/BE ratios were used to assess COC and alcohol co-consumption since COE is produced during the co-consumption of both substances. Higher ratios were also observed during the weekend. However, higher ratios on Saturdays rather than Sundays may be explained by the decrease of BE excretion during the co-consumption with alcohol, which may lead to an underestimation of the cocaine use estimates on Saturdays, as well as by different patterns of co-consumption by powder and crack users, where the latter usually drink lower amounts of alcohol. Our data suggest that only 3% of cocaine was seized by the local Technical Police during the study.

KEYWORDS:

• Wastewater-based epidemiology
• cocaine
• crack
• Brazil
• cocaethylene

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Environmental Sanitation Company of the Federal District for the assistance during the sampling campaign and the Department of Technical Police for sharing data on drug seizure during the investigated period. KMS thanks the Federal District Research Foundation for the assistance provided for her stay in Spain.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplementary data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Federal District Research Foundation under Grant [193.000.916/2015]; the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación under Grant [CTM2017-84763-C3-2-R]; the Galician Council of Culture, Education and Universities under Grants [ED431C2017/36]; IGM postdoctoral contract, Plan Galego I2C-Modalidade B, ED481D 2017/003; and FEDER/ERDF.