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Surface detection methods do not capture true extent of possible health risks, study shows
High levels of methamphetamine contamination have been found in blinds, toys and carpets more than five years after a “cooking house” for the illegal drug was cleaned and sold to new owners.
A Flinders University study analysed contamination levels in common household items to find out whether surface wipe samples could determine potential health risks from methamphetamine residue.
The study was led by Jackie Wright, a senior lecturer in toxicology at the university’s college of science and engineering in Adelaide. The findings are published online in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
Test results indicate that “the methamphetamine contamination present in the property was, and likely remains, highly transferable and mobile, and has contaminated all the items brought into the property post-manufacture [of the drug] that were tested.”
“It is also clear that the levels detected by wipe sampling of wall surfaces are not indicative of the level of contamination within or on other surfaces and objects,” the study says.
Kirstin Ross, a co-author and senior lecturer in environmental health, said the results raised questions about the use of surface detection methods to measure the extent of contamination.
“The most significant mass of methamphetamine was reported to be within the blinds,” she said in a university statement.
“These are plastic blinds that were present when manufacture [of the drug] was suspected to have been undertaken. This is consistent with observations from other properties where higher levels of methamphetamine are present in materials such as PVC, polyurethane and stained and varnished timbers.”
Ross said the results demonstrated that methamphetamine residue had “continued to mobilise after manufacture when the property was under new ownership for a period exceeding five years”.
“This suggests that the methamphetamine is not breaking down or being removed and is constantly transferred from contaminated to non-contaminated objects,” she said.
“Although the time since the cooking [of methamphetamine] had taken place was significant, the levels of contamination were extremely high in both household items that were part of the house when cooking was taking place—blinds, carpets, walls—and also in articles brought to the house post-cooking such as rugs, toys and beds.”
Ross said the study suggested that surface detection methods did not “allow people living inside a former meth house to understand the extent of contamination, not only on surfaces but also within building materials and items they’re exposed to on a daily basis”.