Nitazenes in wastewater with Richard Bade

In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth talks to Dr Richard Bade from Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Queensland about his and his co-authors research report on the identification of nitazenes through wastewater analysis, using two-years of data from 22 countries. Richard discusses why a study detecting nitazenes in wastewater was needed and what the future for detecting nitazenes in wastewater looks like, including implications for policy and practice.

· What is wastewater analysis and how we use it in the field of drugs [01:21]

· What are nitazenes and why they are a problem [02:28]

· Why a study detecting nitazenes in wastewater was needed [03:31]

· Whether there is a demand for nitazenes [04:08]

· How Richard and his team chose the eight nitazenes to study [05:05]

· The headline findings of the paper [05:55]

· Whether a lack of nitazenes in wastewater means that they aren’t there or they are in too low concentration to be found [08:16]

· The benefits of wastewater analysis to detect nitazenes [09:37]

· The surprisingly high level of nitazenes in Australia [10:37]

· What we can learn for policy and practice [11:47]

· The joy and difficulties working with many co-authors! [14:11]

About Elle Wadsworth: Elle is an academic fellow with the Society for the Study of Addiction. She is based at the University of Bath with the Addiction and Mental Health Group and her research interests include drug policy, cannabis legalisation, and public health. Elle is also a senior analyst at RAND Europe, working on projects focusing on national and international drug policies.

About Richard Bade: Dr Richard Bade is a Senior Research Fellow at the Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS) within The University of Queensland. He completed his PhD at the University Jaume I, Castellon, Spain in 2016 before moving to the University of South Australia in 2017 and QAEHS in 2021. He is interested in understanding links between environmental and community health using wastewater analysis. His particular research interests are associated with the surveillance, detection and identification of new psychoactive substances (NPS) in wastewater and other matrices as well as exploring the impact of chemical and pathogen exposure during mass gatherings. Dr Bade currently leads an expanding international consortium exploring the prevalence of NPS worldwide. These data can help provide insights into the emergence of new, potent NPS, and ensure that public harm from their exposure is minimized.

Original article: Early identification of the use of potent benzylbenzimidazoles (nitazenes) through wastewater analysis: two-years of data from 22 countries. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.70027

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