China is so desperate to win its war on drugs, it's started analyzing people's sewage for contaminated pee

Carlos Barria/Reuters

• China has been going hard in its war on drugs.
• Its efforts are so intense that some cities have started analyzing sewage for traces of drugs to root out users and dealers.
• That work has helped catch at least one drug manufacturer, and the country plans to expand the program in the future.
• This raises the question: Does a person's sewage belong to them, or to the Chinese state?

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China is so desperate to crack down on illegal drug use that some of its cities are analyzing people's sewage in the hope of finding drug users by analyzing their waste.

Officials have been chemically examining sewage for traces of drugs or metabolites — bodily substances created after the human body interacts with certain drugs — in people's urine, according to a report in Nature magazine, which cites a Chinese environmental chemist involved in the efforts.

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