engleski

The impact of a major music festival and tourist season on the drug, alcohol and tobacco consumption in a Croatian coastal city

In this study, we applied the wastewater-based epidemiology methodology to investigate the impact of the major music festival and tourist season on the drug, alcohol and tobacco consumption in one of the main coastal tourist areas in Croatia, the city of Split, (about 200, 000 inhabitants). The study was performed in 2016 during three selected one-week periods, covering different situations: a large techno music festival (July), the main tourist season with no special events (August) and the control period outside the tourist season (November). The analyses included the biomarkers of 6 "classical" illicit drugs (cannabis, cocaine, heroin, MDMA, amphetamine and methamphetamine), 20 novel amphetamine-like psychoactive substances (NPS), 27 therapeutic opiods and their metabolites as well as the selected alcohol and nicotine metabolites. All chemical analyses were performed by LC-MS/MS, using the previously validated analytical protocols. Before the instrumental analyses, the drug biomarkers were enriched on Oasis MCX cartridges, while the metabolites of nicotine and alcohol were determined by direct injection of filtered aqueous samples into the instrument, with a previous enzymatic deconjugation in the case of nicotine metabolites. The results indicated a prevalent consumption of "classical" illicit drugs over the investigated NPS. The mostly consumed illicit drug was cannabis (up to 15.7 g/day/1000 inhabitants), but its consumption was not clearly related to any of the investigated seasonal patterns. A rather uniform temporal consumption was observed for nicotine as well. By contrast, both investigated summer periods were characterized by significantly enhanced consumption of different psychostimulant substances, including several illicit drugs and alcohol. The most dramatic change was observed for MDMA, with a 30-fold increase in its consumption during the music festival (average daily consumption of MDMA in July, August and November were 1.8, 0.12 and 0.06 g/day/1000 inhabitants, respectively). The corresponding increase of alcohol (10-18 L/day/1000 inhabitants) and cocaine consumption (0.8-1.6 g/day/1000 inhabitants) was much lower, indicating that MDMA usage strongly predominated among the festival participants.

wastewater epidemiology ; LC-MS/MS ; illicit drugs ; music festival ; tourist season

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