DC: 7 tons of cocaine up the nose & down the drain                              
                                                      Recently a German 
research outfit tested wastewater in more than a dozen worldwide cities for 
metabolites of cocaine. The idea was to infer per-capita cocaine use by 
measuring the concentration of coke by-products (excreted through urine and 
then through the waste treatment system) in the Hudson, the Potomac and other 
great rivers of the world. The winner, by a lot: New York City, with an 
estimated useage of 134 lines of cocaine per day per 1,000 inhabitants. That's 
16 tons a year. Miranda de Ebro, in Spain's Pyrenees, came in second. 
Washington D.C. placed third, with 56 lines a day per 1,000 inhabitants or 7 
tons per year. San Francisco was fourth. No tests were done on the Patapsco. 
  
  Source: Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research. The study was 
cited in the United Nations' World Drug Report, published a couple weeks ago. 
Thanks to Big Picture for the tip.  
                            

       
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