There's a bit more than just oxygen, carbon dioxide and love in Auckland's air, according to a new study.
University of Auckland researchers have published a first-of-its-kind study for Oceania that found traces of methamphetamine, nicotine, caffeine and THC in the CBD's air.
The limited study used filters at a pollution monitoring site on Customs St near the bottom of Queen St, which were then analysed by scientists.
The largest concentration of meth detected was 104 picograms per cubic metre of air - a picogram being one trillionth of a gram, or 0.000000000001g.
On average, across 10 samples over a period of five weeks, an average of 24.8 picograms of meth per cubic metre of air was recorded on Customs St.
"Assuming an active dose of 5 milligrams and 16 cubic metres of air inhaled per person each day, it would take an individual over 8,000 years to inhale an active dose,” the scientists wrote in a paper published in the Atmospheric Pollution Research journal.
A University of Auckland study is the first of its kind to measure what people are breathing in in the city. (Source: Breakfast)
Airborne drug concentrations spiked in the week leading up to Christmas as well as over New Year's Eve.
To little surprise, the most prevalent drug in the study was nicotine, which had an average concentration of 4.91 nanograms per cubic metre - around 47 times greater than meth's presence.
UoA School of Chemical Sciences research fellow Dr Joel Rindelaub worked on the study and assures that while the concept of meth in the air sounds intimidating, the airborne drugs pose no active threat.
"The results aren’t as concerning as a headline might make them sound," he said, "[but] we need to investigate more about the air because some of the things we're breathing could be surprising."
In contrast with international cities that have run similar tests, Rindelaub said the presence of meth was higher in New Zealand. At the same time, drugs such as caffeine and THC - likely from takeaway coffees and cannabis smoke, respectively - were less frequent.
"Methamphetamine would be the one that stuck out... most of the drugs we thought were at a lower level, nicotine, for instance, did seem to correlate with a lot of regulations and different laws in different countries, which impacted the airborne concentration of that type of drug," he said.
Rindelaub said that sample collection, analysis and reconfirming findings take time in studies like these, meaning air filters cannot produce instant results. There are necessary delays to ensure that correct results are reported.
Though research into airborne drugs is "very much in the beginning stages," he thinks it could eventually be used alongside wastewater analyses better to understand the presence of illicit substances in communities.
"[Analysing] air could be a complementary technique because oftentimes how people are handling drugs is not always [reflected in] how they are excreting them, where wastewater analysis would be useful.
"It could be used in the future, depending on if the council and other places are interested in collecting data."
The most prevalent drug in the study was nicotine, which had an average concentration of 4.91 nanograms per cubic metre. (Source: 1News)
He emphasised that this was a pilot study and was in a concentrated location in the Auckland CBD. Therefore, more studies in other downtown locations would be needed to paint a more complete picture.
In a separate study in December, Rindelaub and colleagues showed that microplastics swirling in Auckland's air were equivalent to "3 million plastic bottles falling from the sky every year".
He says over 3,300 premature deaths per year are related to air pollution in Aotearoa.
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