Myrtle Creek drug testing entire community

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Story Published: Nov 21, 2007 at 9:33 AM PST

By Dan Bain

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The City of Myrtle Creek is testing its waste water to determine community drug use.

The city is participating in a statewide study that determines drug use through testing of the waste water. Samples are taken from the treatment plant.

Oregon State University is conducting the study, funded by the Oregon Health Science Medical Research Fund.

Myrtle Creek City Manager Aaron Cubic says they're not sure what they'll find from the testing, but he says they're interested to see how they compare with the other cities in the test. It could give them some valuable information in dealing with the drug problem in the city.

"One of our goals is no meth in Myrtle Creek, and it's something the Mayor feels real strongly about. So this is one of those steps to help us try and determine what type of drug usages we have out there in our community, and maybe look at programs to help enforce that."

The process is like a urinalysis test, only it's for the whole community. They can determine the presence of a long list of illicit drugs, from meth to ecstasy, and even nicotine from cigarette smoke.

"Depending on what we find out with this statewide test, we may look into doing a larger test over a certain period of time so we can see trends in drug use, and see how they go, and see if we might want to focus on something a little stronger."

The city has already taken the samples and are sending those in to OSU. They'll be tested on December 4th, and they expect to have the data available by early January.

Cubic says 132 treatment plants around the state are participating in the study, in a wide range of large and small communities.

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