Trout Are Becoming Addicted to Meth in Polluted Waters, Study Reveals Newsweek 6 hrs ago Sara Santora © BobGross/iStock A new study reveals that brown trout are becoming addicted to methamphetamine in polluted rivers.
A new study reveals that brown trout can get addicted to small amounts of methamphetamine that appear in their freshwater environments, which includes experiencing signs of withdrawal. Though it might at first appear to be an odd subject to research, Live Science says meth pollutes rivers across the globe. Where methamphetamine users are, there is also methamphetamine pollution of freshwaters, said Pavel Horký, the study s first author in an email to Live Science.
Fish can become addicted to methamphetamine in the water, and scientists are very concerned
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Illicit drug use is a growing global health concern that causes a financial burden of hundreds of billions of dollars in the US alone. But hidden beneath the societal costs of this human epidemic is a potential ecological crisis. As methamphetamine levels rise in freshwater streams, fish are increasingly becoming addicted.
“Where methamphetamine users are, there is also methamphetamine pollution,” says Pavel Horký at the Czech University of Life Sciences.
Humans excrete methamphetamines into wastewater, but treatment plants aren’t designed to deal with such substances. Because of this, as treated wastewater flows into streams, so do methamphetamines and other drugs.
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Human pollution is often evident from oil slicks and plastic drifting on shore, but many of the drugs that we consume also end up washing out into our water and current effluent treatment isn t equipped to deal with them. Drugs such as fluoxetine - also known as Prozac - creeping into our waterways can embolden fish and alter their behaviour, but pharmaceutical pollution doesn t end with prescribed medication. Illegal drugs, such as methamphetamine, can also accumulate in our waterways. Whether illicit drugs alter fish behaviour at levels increasingly observed in surface water bodies was unclear , says Pavel Horký from the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Czech Republic. He and his colleagues, from the same university and the University of Southern Bohemia in ?eské Bud?jovice, Czech Republic, decided to investigate whether brown trout (Salmo trutta) are at risk of addiction from illegal methamphetamine in their waterways and discovered that they are. The team pu
Methamphetamine in waterways may be turning trout into addicts CNN 9 hrs ago © Courtesy Pavel Horký Brown trout suffered withdrawal after being exposed to methamphetamine, researchers found.
Brown trout can become addicted to the illegal drug methamphetamine when it accumulates in waterways, according to new research.
Researchers led by Pavel Horky, a behavioral ecologist from the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, set out to investigate whether illicit drugs alter fish behavior at levels found in bodies of water, according to the study published Tuesday.
The team put 40 brown trout in a tank of water, containing a level of methamphetamine that has been found in freshwater rivers, for a period of eight weeks, before transferring them to a clean tank.
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