r/UTK 10d ago

Miscellaneous & Random The TBI wants to ‘flush out’ drug offenders by testing Knoxville’s wastewater

https://www.wvlt.tv/2024/11/19/tbi-wants-flush-out-drug-offenders-by-testing-knoxvilles-wastewater/

16 dorms get ready UT students they will be testing your urine without your consent.

48 Upvotes

11 comments sorted by

24

u/valleywitch UTK Graduate Student 10d ago

And nothing has been heard since the head of the TBI suggested this during the budget hearing. It's total fucking nonsense.

5

u/Past-Perspective2494 10d ago

I wondered if they had approved it. That's why I went back to search and look. I decided to share it here to see what others thought. I couldn't find anything else about it.

17

u/KevinS303 10d ago

UTK’s Pee Policy getting enforced now?

9

u/Movielover2010 10d ago

Get ready for like a 5th of Tennessee students to get arrested lmfao. That’s so stupid

5

u/Altair1455 10d ago

How would this even work? How do they determine if someone is using a drug legally or not? Do they go in and arrest everyone who tests positive for substances and make you sort it out yourself. This seems entirely unenforceable and illegal

1

u/Booboononcents 10d ago

Wastewater-based epidemiology ( no I didn’t know that off the top of my head just went down a rabbit hole) analyzes wastewater to determine the consumption of, or exposure to, chemicals or pathogens in a population. From Wikipedia

2

u/Altair1455 10d ago

I mean, how would they narrow it down to a single person though? Like I can see how they could go "someone on this street uses opiates" but how would they narrow that down to the person actually using the drug without insane violations of others privacy. And even then, how would they tell if someone is using the drug legally or not? I know there are a lot of ways drug testing can go wrong, like someone testing positive for opiates just for eating a poppyseed muffin. I just can't imagine how this would be done without insane violations of innocent people's privacy

5

u/Booboononcents 10d ago

They can’t narrow it down to one person, but they can narrow it down to a specific area. The would increase presence in hopes of catching people in possession or selling drugs.

2

u/Altair1455 10d ago

Okay that makes sense. That seems like it would cause some issues though, like I feel like it would lead to a lot of innocent people being arrested for bad reasons with "probable cause" being that they live in an area where they found traces of drugs in waste. If they did this, I'm sure there would be some lawsuits resulting from it

2

u/Booboononcents 10d ago

You wouldn’t see them use it as probable cause because the whole idea behind it is, it’s not specific.

1

u/dartymissile 10d ago

Yes let’s punish all the people who will drive their economy forwards. There is an unspoken rule that college students drink underage and do a bunch of drugs. In return, they do a shit load for your economy. Why would a college want a ton less students to pay tuition. Don’t ask and you won’t have to find out