The Drug War Goes Into the Sewers

Over at Below the Beltway, Doug Mataconis points to a Wash Post article documenting a new low in the War on Drugs: Feds are now contemplating checking out wastewater for "the urinary byproducts of cocaine":

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said it is not seeking to single out specific localities. It also is premature, officials said, to conclude that levels of metabolized cocaine in sewage offer a more accurate index of consumption than traditional survey research.

But David Murray, special assistant to national drug czar John P. Walters, said wastewater testing, which has been tried in Europe, "certainly has that potential."

"We think it will be very, very useful," Murray said.

Can you piss into the same coke-laced river twice? Whole thing here.

Bonus: Reason interviewed David Murray some years back, when he was co-director of STATs (see below) and had coauthored the good book It Ain't Necessarily So: How Media Make and Unmake the Scientific Picture of Reality. See what obsession with drugs can do to you kids?