Back in December we reported that authorities are beginning to use 'sewage epidemiology' to track drug use in communities. This method analyzes sewage from wastewater treatment plants for certain metabolites, essentially looking through our bodily waste for "illicit" substances.

After the historic legalization of cannabis in Washington state, researchers are seeking to determine if and how much pot use has changed across the population. Are more people using cannabis? Are more people using on the weekend than during the week? How does the data correlate with surveys about cannabis use?

These questions are natural for cultural research, but one of the interested parties may not be so benign. The federal government is partially funding a three-year pilot study in two undisclosed Washington cities, being conducted by the University of Puget Sound.

The National Institutes of Health will be contributing $120,000 to look at how per-capita cannabis use has changed since the opening of legal pot shops. The news is a bit perplexing, since the federal government is actively pursuing cases against Washington residents for growing and possessing cannabis. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Department of Justice (DOJ) are still in the primitive mindset that cannabis use is a criminal act.

Since cannabis is bizarrely classified as a Schedule 1 drug, the feds remain obsessed with knowing how much of the plant is being sourced from the black market.