Elliot Bay, Puget Sound

Sewage entering Puget Sound carries everything we ingest, including drugs. Thank goodness Trump has begun confronting this opioid disaster we’ve been inflicting on ourselves. It is worth noting, it took Trump to deal with this crisis in a serious way when other presidents, both Republican and Democrat, did not.

Via UPI.

The growing use of opioids is showing up in an unexpected place — the waters of the Puget Sound, specifically the marine life that lives there, scientists say.

Researchers at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said that for the first time, mussels living in parts of the Puget Sound are testing positive for oxycodone, a prescription drug used to alleviate pain in humans.

But diners don’t have to worry about contaminated mussels ending up on their plates. Researchers took clean mussels from Penn Cove on Whidby Island and placed them in cages in Puget Sound, where they took in trace contaminants from their new home after two or three months.

The transplanted locations aren’t near any commercial shellfish beds.

The opioids ended up in the sound through human sewage which is processed by wastewater management systems that can’t filter out drugs. And it’s not just opioids that end up in water, drugs like antidepressants and chemotherapy are detected in the mussels, too.

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