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© 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

The United Nations World Drug Report published in 2022 alarmed that the global market of illicit drugs is steadily expanding in space and scale. Substances of abuse are usually perceived in the light of threats to human health and public security, while the environmental aspects of their use and subsequent emissions usually remain less explored. However, as with other human activities, drug production, trade, and consumption of drugs may leave their environmental mark. Therefore, this paper aims to review the occurrence of illicit drugs in surface waters and their bioaccumulation and toxicity in fish. Illicit drugs of different groups, i.e., psychostimulants (methamphetamines/amphetamines, cocaine, and its metabolite benzoylecgonine) and depressants (opioids: morphine, heroin, methadone, fentanyl), can reach the aquatic environment through wastewater discharge as they are often not entirely removed during wastewater treatment processes, resulting in their subsequent circulation in nanomolar concentrations, potentially affecting aquatic biota, including fish. Exposure to such xenobiotics can induce oxidative stress and dysfunction to mitochondrial and lysosomal function, distort locomotion activity by regulating the dopaminergic and glutamatergic systems, increase the predation risk, instigate neurological disorders, disbalance neurotransmission, and produce histopathological alterations in the brain and liver tissues, similar to those described in mammals. Hence, this drugs-related multidimensional harm to fish should be thoroughly investigated in line with environmental protection policies before it is too late. At the same time, selected fish species (e.g., Danio rerio, zebrafish) can be employed as models to study toxic and binge-like effects of psychoactive, illicit compounds.

Details

Title
Illicit Drugs in Surface Waters: How to Get Fish off the Addictive Hook
Author
Falfushynska, Halina 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Rychter, Piotr 2 ; Boshtova, Anastasiia 3 ; Faidiuk, Yuliia 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Kasianchuk, Nadiia 5   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Rzymski, Piotr 6   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Faculty of Economics, Anhalt University of Applied Sciences, 06406 Bernburg, Germany 
 Faculty of Science & Technology, Jan Dlugosz University in Częstochowa, Armii Krajowej 13/15, 42200 Czestochowa, Poland; [email protected] 
 Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2JD, UK; [email protected] 
 Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, Rudolfa Weigla 12, 53114 Wrocław, Poland; [email protected]; Educational and Scientific Centre “Institute of Biology and Medicine”, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, 2 Prospekt Hlushkov, 03022 Kyiv, Ukraine; Zabolotny Institute of Microbiology and Virology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 154 Zabolotny Str., 03143 Kyiv, Ukraine 
 Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, 61712 Poznań, Poland; [email protected] 
 Department of Environmental Medicine, Poznan University of Medical Sciences, 60806 Poznań, Poland; [email protected] 
First page
537
Publication year
2024
Publication date
2024
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
14248247
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3047024565
Copyright
© 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.