Everybody in Los Angeles is a DRUG FIEND

reply to post by battlestargalactica


1. There still isn't evidence that chlorine amplifies the effects of the drugs enough to make the harmful.

2. CNN didn't mention what concentrations were used to achieve the harmful effects in human cells.

Are there concerns? Sure, concerns which merit more research. Not concerns which merit sensationalism.

Anyone who has been to Los Angeles and has spent a couple of hours in the rush hour traffic would know the people need to be drugged to deal with the insanity.

reply to post by Divinorumus

LA water is terrible, before this I thought it was just the massive chlorine and fluoride injections, now gods knows what drugs as well.

A good test for chlorine in municipal water supply at home is:

Fill up your bathtub, determine the coloration of the water as you look thru it to the bottom of the full tub (hopefully your tub is white or light). In LA it's pretty greenish-bluish, indication of lots of chlorine. Some other areas may just have a tinge which of course is better. I know people that fill their tubs up with their showerhead filters


[edit on 5-4-2008 by battlestargalactica]

reply to post by battlestargalactica


what utter twaddle - the clorine concentration of drinking water does NOT affect its colouration

to effect a tint - the clorine PPM would be so high the taste would make you gag

reply to post by ignorant_ape

Why don't you 'twaddle' over here tell us what does cause the coloration then. It isn't mineralization since its a city source (LA) and after friends use their showerhead filters (simple $20 device) to fill their tubs, water is crystal clear, no tint.

ok - now we have had all the sensationalist BS posts - can we please have some facts ?

what are the EXACT ppm concentrations of all these contaminants in the LA drinking water ?

reply to post by ignorant_ape

As stated in above posts (please read them) there isn't data released (or is being withheld) of the exact concentrations, generalizations stating "small", "tiny" or other such statements are used. Those terms are of course relative, for example: "small and tiny amounts of DDT in the water" would warrant further concern.

Also if there was data that we could get our hands on concerning levels, would you or I be able to accurately make a determination that it is 'safe' for humans in our water supply? Even if you and I were doctors, the effects of these compounds in water, and the prolonged exposure, and the interaction of so many differnt drugs (56 in Philadelphia) make this a complex issue that needs to be addressed.

"There's no doubt about it, pharmaceuticals are being detected in the environment and there is genuine concern that these compounds, in the small concentrations that they're at, could be causing impacts to human health or to aquatic organisms."

The above brings another concern, that is what effect of these drugs on wildife, fish, birds, bees whatever? And here:

Also, pharmaceuticals in waterways are damaging wildlife across the nation and around the globe, research shows. Notably, male fish are being feminized, creating egg yolk proteins, a process usually restricted to females. Pharmaceuticals also are affecting sentinel species at the foundation of the pyramid of life — such as earth worms in the wild and zooplankton in the laboratory, studies show.

Some scientists stress that the research is extremely limited, and there are too many unknowns. They say, though, that the documented health problems in wildlife are disconcerting.

Small amounts of drugs:

Recent laboratory research has found that small amounts of medication have affected human embryonic kidney cells, human blood cells and human breast cancer cells. The cancer cells proliferated too quickly; the kidney cells grew too slowly; and the blood cells showed biological activity associated with inflammation.

That does not sound good. But again no hard numbers.

I am living in Los Angeles and although I do not partake in the intentional use of the drugs the OP has stated- which would cancel me out as a drug fiend add the fact that I am an LA resident- the OP's Thread Headline would in fact be false.

That said- I would love a stimulant drug that would correct my OCD that does not lead to a porn and masturbation addiction. That would be sweet.

Until this wonder drug is found and proven side-effect less I shall manage my insanity without any drugs. Unfortunately for ATS and its members, the only natural course for managing this is my constantly being online.

I am not a drug fiend and I live in Los Angeles.

[edit on 5-4-2008 by dk3000]

reply to post by dk3000
Hah, looks like your horse avatar is also a drug fiend. He's got some issues

On other notes, here is more concerning drugs administered in trace amount (parts Per billion or trillion) and the cumulative effects of such on the human physiology:

There's growing concern in the scientific community, meanwhile, that certain drugs — or combinations of drugs — may harm humans over decades because water, unlike most specific foods, is consumed in sizable amounts every day.

Our bodies may shrug off a relatively big one-time dose, yet suffer from a smaller amount delivered continuously over a half century, perhaps subtly stirring allergies or nerve damage. Pregnant women, the elderly and the very ill might be more sensitive.

Many concerns about chronic low-level exposure focus on certain drug classes: chemotherapy that can act as a powerful poison; hormones that can hamper reproduction or development; medicines for depression and epilepsy that can damage the brain or change behavior; antibiotics that can allow human germs to mutate into more dangerous forms; pain relievers and blood-pressure diuretics.

For several decades, federal environmental officials and nonprofit watchdog environmental groups have focused on regulated contaminants — pesticides, lead, PCBs — which are present in higher concentrations and clearly pose a health risk.

Remember we are talking about all kinds of drugs, muscle relaxers, mood alteration, pain killers, hormones and myriad other all mixed in a nice drug cocktail for you to ingest:

However, some experts say medications may pose a unique danger because, unlike most pollutants, they were crafted to act on the human body.

[edit on 5-4-2008 by battlestargalactica]

reply to post by battlestargalactica


I've lived in LA.

Venice, to be precise.

Everyone there is definitely a drug fiend.

And I was concerned about the BPA in my water bottles!

I only drink spring water bottled at the source, and I keep my PET jugs in a cool dark place, to mitigate the leaching of BPA.

The excreted drugs in the waste water I could see, but why are these drugs showing up in the water supply!?!

Waste water shouldn't be showing up in the water supply, right!?!

And I don't care about the concentration, it shouldn't be there at all!

reply to post by Divinorumus


Shades of THX1138.




[edit on 5-4-2008 by goosdawg]

reply to post by goosdawg

Yea I think the residents of Venice want them to add MORE drugs to the water supply Although Venice definitely has changed to big money area of late.

I agree, I want darn near 0 concentrations of these dangerous drugs in my drinking water (well I don't drink the city water, I have a distiller, but for all the people that do in this country..).

This actually CAN be in some brands of bottled water (sorry to say). How? Some brands take water from the tap, put it thru their own system of filtering, and shove it into a bottle. These filters are most like the city treatment facilities anyway, and don't filter pharma from the water. It isn't regulated either as stated above by the EPA or FDA to even LOOK for these drugs.

Other bottled water companies get their water from a spring, private wells are NOT exempt either from contaminants flowing thru the ground, neither are these drug compounds. And again, the final water source is not tested for pharma (why test its not required-it costs money to test).

So yea it's scary.

reply to post by battlestargalactica


Sorry, folks, there's no way getting around trace drugs in water.

"Even users of bottled water and home filtration systems don't necessarily avoid exposure. Bottlers, some of which simply repackage tap water, do not typically treat or test for pharmaceuticals, according to the industry's main trade group. The same goes for the makers of home filtration systems."

www.cnn.com...

Originally posted by whitecastle
reply to post by battlestargalactica

 

"Even users of bottled water and home filtration systems don't necessarily avoid exposure. Bottlers, some of which simply repackage tap water, do not typically treat or test for pharmaceuticals, according to the industry's main trade group. The same goes for the makers of home filtration systems."

Yes I know, thanks for the link though. The best way to remove virtually everything from water is through DISTILLATION, the process of boiling water to steam and back to liquid form again, thereby killing bacteria, removing contaminants and chemical compounds.

Another way, but unknown if 100% effective for pharmaceuticals, is thru reverse osmosis. This method at water bottlers and city treatment is NOT used due to the increased complexity and expenses involved (Some water bottlers may use reverse osmosis however).

My distiller churns away without me touching it, its pretty nice, always have fresh supply of agua there. This writeup is for the people that don't have this capability and means to afford such methods, and trust and rely on the city government to provide a safe and sanitary drinking water supply.

reply to post by battlestargalactica


I don't know. Some of these drugs, especially the anti-cholesterol ones, are really, really stubborn, resiting all kinds of filtering. I wonder if anyone's bottled water ever came up completely negative for all drugs...now THAT would be something that could really be advertised.

Pretty frightening.

I defy anyone to claim that these things are harmless.

Polluted water is never harmless, not even when minutely polluted. Even if you don't get sick, impure water has all kinds of effects on your body.

Where I come from we have mountain springs with flawless water, no germs and no pollution. But that's in the mountains. The natives here of which I am a descendant were used to drinking that pure water - now the tribe drinks tap water and eats modern food - their health is in ruins.

Clean water is the most valuable thing for your health. Any amount of pollution, even stagnation from water storage, decreases the purity and composition of the water and reduces hydration.

The cells in your body are made of water - without pure water they become rigid and polluted.

Clear water irrigates the cells and flushes them out, refreshing them. Clean water is almost impossible to come by now-a-days. As a result, our bodies are like cars running without motor oil.


This pharma pollution is just insult to injury. I am glad I do not live in a major city.

reply to post by whitecastle

Yea that would be good advertising! That can also be another study, pharma within bottled water, my guess is that it would be slightly cleaner (since it goes thru another filter cycle) but still contaminated with drug compounds.

This is a pretty huge deal, I mean the implications reach from wildlife dieoff or genetic modifications (which affect the food chain), to humans and medical problems, to sperm counts and reproduction, to decreased fertility etc. I'm sure I am missing some scenarios that can result, partly because I don't want to think about it.

Columbus, Ohio: 5 (azithromycin, roxithromycin, tylosin, virginiamycin and caffeine)

oh snaps I am a druggie too. Except for 4 of these being antibiotics and 1 of them is caffiene.

Actually not. The drugs are in ppm and are a very low dosage. I mean very low.

For one to intake enough of any of the medications, they would have to drink many times their own body weight, repeatedly, over a long period of time, but likely the drugs will still have no effects because the body will break them down too quickly.

Here is why I know. If people could ingest enough of these drugs to get an effect, many people who are allergic would get allergic reactions. Azithromycin is a good example of this. The one who is allergic would have a bloody stool.

I would not worry about the water.... for now.

Are there any studies on the water in the Charlotte, NC area? If there's pain killers in the water maybe I'll just drink tap water instead of buying tylenol and stuff like that. There could be an UP side to this, you know.


Want some codeine? Drink some water. Cooooll!

reply to post by uplander


Might not be a bad idea. A lot of headaches are caused by dehydration, anyways!

i read about this in 02 during a bio terrorism convention and the same things that make it virtually impossible for terrorists to harm our water are the same things that make these drugs pretty harmless to us.

its about concentration. most of these things are in the ppb and ppt realm. and even in the ppm realm by the time you drank enough to get one part, youve digested it and its on its way back to be recycled again.


for comparison that means to get a mg of any of these u need to drink a billion ml of water (for reference a 12oz soda is 355ml)

i mean we could stop recycling our water but what would the environmentalists think of that?

drink up, yer fine.