What Canada's wastewater reveals about drug use in 8 cities
New Statistics Canada data shows striking differences in drugs detected in wastewater across eight Canadian cities:
The StatCan survey measures drug metabolites — chemical byproducts excreted after the body breaks down drugs — in wastewater samples collected during one-week sampling windows every two months.
The data, from January 2024 to March 2026, covers catchments serving about 9.2 million people. StatCan cautions that it doesn't show exactly how many people use a drug or how much they consume.
But it is a "pretty good proxy of drug consumption" within the area served by a treatment plant, StatCan analyst Sianne Kuang told CBC News.
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