Monitoring rural-urban drug trends: an analysis of drug arrest statistics 1976-1980.

Recent research on urban drug use indicates that the alarming upward trend identified during the late 1960s and early 1970s is stabilizing. However, there is disagreement concerning whether the same pattern holds for rural populations. Early research reported low rates of drug use in nonmetropolitan areas. More recent research findings indicate that drug use in rural areas is much higher than originally thought. This discrepancy results, in part, from our inability to effectively monitor drug use in high-risk groups over time. One effective way of monitoring drug use trends is through the examination of drug arrest statistics by means of time series techniques. This analysis of urban drug arrests confirms that use is leveling off in such areas. No increase was found for the rural population over the 5-year period, however. Rather than finding a difference, it was found that rural-urban drug trends are quite similar.