Comments on Some Good Shit

I'd guess about double that amount is realistic, maybe slightly more. That of course is people that are using drugs they know to be illegal. If you factor in those who habitually abuse prescription or over the counter meds, that number would probably triple, which I think is more relevant as a public health issue, but isn't neccessarily the info the feds might be interested in.

We live in a country where the government reserves the right to lock up 10% of the population at just about any given time... for self-medicating? For smoking pot? For picking mushrooms?

Nuts.

Would it help if we mailed our stool samples to the DEA? You know, for statistical purposes.

To insure accurate reporting, all participants would of course have to remain anonymous.

Does that account for dealers and possessors who flush their coke down the toilet to elude the wrath the authorities?

Gomez, scientists in Italy wondered the same thing. This answer comes from the Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-1721874,00.html):

"To confirm their findings, the team also sampled urban waste water from Cagliari in Sardinia, Latina in central Italy, and from Cuneo and Varese in the north — all medium-sized cities. The values they obtained from the undiluted waste water were far higher than those in the Po, as would be expected. But when translated into likely local use of the drug, they produced very similar figures — which suggests that the Po region is not exceptional in its cocaine consumption. The results cannot be explained by assuming that some drug trafficker was panicked into dumping his stash down the lavatory. If so, much more pure cocaine would have been found, and much less of its human metabolite, BE. In fact, the ratio of cocaine to BE was consistent throughout all the samples."