DRUGS IN RURAL AMERICA

It is widely supposed that families living in the country are protected, if
perhaps only in a small measure, from the problems that plague this
country's urban areas. The presumption is that because they are
geographically removed from the supposed concrete cradles of drug abuse or
crime, adults and children in rural areas avoid the pitfalls that can drag
down their urban counterparts.

But a new study provides disturbing evidence that this is not the case. In
fact, according to the data from Columbia University's National Center on
Addiction and Substance Abuse, drug use among teenagers is higher in the
country than the city.

This may come as a surprise to urban dwellers, but it isn't news to law
enforcement officials in rural counties. They have been saying this for
some time.

Many have felt they have inadequate personnel and resources in some cases
to cover the large areas under their jurisdictions, and this gives drug
users - predominantly teenagers and young adults - a sense of security, a
feeling that the police or local sheriff's department has literally too
much ground to cover to do it efficiently.

The report, presented last week to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, notes
that rural areas are particularly susceptible to drugs such as amphetamines
because these drugs can be more secretively manufactured there. Over all,
the report suggests, drug dealers and smugglers find smaller towns more
conducive to their deadly business.

Among its other findings, the report says that twice as many eighth-graders
in rural areas were likely to have used amphetamines as their urban peers.
While the percentage figures are relatively low - 5.1 per cent compared
with 2.5 per cent - that translates into a lot of kids who are involved in
harmful drugs. Rural kids also are far more likely to have used cocaine,
crack cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol.

This is a call to arms for parents, schools, and law enforcement.

While adult drug use remains fairly constant across the rural/urban divide,
young people are substantially more at risk in the country than the city.
Obviously this mandates a much closer look at drug intervention and
interdiction in rural areas; consideration given to greater funding of
anti-drug efforts by law enforcement, and a hard crackdown on the dealers.

City folks probably were naive to assume rural America was somehow immune
from the problems affecting the cities. But think it we did, including here
in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan.

Now that the evidence is in, and the illusion shattered, concentrated
efforts are necessary to rid rural America of drugs.