A nine-year study on the temporal changes of licit and illicit drug use patterns as revealed from the chemical analysis of influent wastewater from the wastewater treatment plant of Athens

Daily flow-proportional composite influent wastewater was collected from the Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) in Athens during a nine-year sampling campaign (2010-2019). Analytes in influent wastewater are markers of the consumption and the exposure of the chemicals in the population. Wastewater samples were cleaned up and enriched 200 times using a generic solid phase extraction protocol based on a mixture of four sorbent materials capable of retaining a wide-range of analytes. Extracts were analyzed by a wide-scope targeted LC-QTOFMS and by highly-sensitive LC-MS/MS methods for the determination of pharmaceuticals such as antidepressants, anxiolytics, antipsychotics, antibiotics, antiepileptics, analgesics, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), diuretics, antihypertensives, antiulcer, and steroids as well as the main illicit drugs and their metabolites among others. Furthermore, the daily consumption of the substances was back-calculated with the aim of revealing trends in the use patterns of the compounds and associate the changes with socioeconomic phenomena, law enforcements and financial indicators.