Amsterdam sewers filled with pot; Eindhoven has ecstasy

Drugs waste, such as from cannabis plantations and ecstasy laboratories, are increasingly dumped into the sewers. This is according to a large European study on drugs in the sewer in 50 European cities, done by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

For this study, researchers analyzed the sewage of a city for 24 hours a day for one week to find out how much drugs there are in the sewers. The three Dutch cities that participated in the study were Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Utrecht.

Of all the cities that were studied, Amsterdam has by far the most cannabis in its sewage system.  The concentration of cannabis was 569.4 mg per 1000 people per day. The city that has the second most cannabis in its sewers is Barcelona in Spain, with 165.7 mg per 100 thousand people per day.

The researches found more than 25 kilograms of ecstasy waste in the Eindhoven sewers in one week. That is 100 times more than normal. Eindhoven has the second highest amount of amphetamine in its sewers of all 50 cities, with a concentration of 203.7 mg. The only city with a higher concentration is Antwerp in Belgium with a concentration of 212.9 mg.