Kazakhstan is testing sewage water for narcotic and psychoactive substances. The results of the analyses may be used to gather evidence in cases involving underground drug laboratories, the website infohub.kz reports.
Samples of household wastewater are collected by law enforcement officers. The materials are then sent to chemical-toxicological departments of forensic examination, where specialists try to detect drugs, medicinal substances and their breakdown products.
Nazgul Imambayeva, deputy director of the Center for Forensic Examinations of the Ministry of Justice, said that detecting banned substances in sewage water is difficult because of their low concentration.
"The sample preparation itself takes up a very large amount of work, in order to extract some narcotic or psychoactive substance from this mass," Imambayeva said.
Experts use high-performance analytical equipment for the research. It makes it possible to detect traces of substances and their metabolites even in highly diluted samples.
Deputy Interior Minister Sanzhar Adilov explained that water, soil and other materials are examined after operational information is received.
"We work on signals. First of all, I would like to note that more than 30 drug laboratories have been identified in our country," Adilov said.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs noted that the results of several studies can complement each other and form the evidence base in criminal cases. At the same time, the ministry did not specify how many drug laboratories were discovered directly thanks to the analysis of sewage water.