Most research on drug use and the drug industry in the United States has been done in urban areas. On a practical level, the neglect of rural areas is important because these areas have problems with drug use, are important in the transshipment of drugs across the country, and are increasingly the sites for production of synthetic drugs and marijuana. From a methodological and theoretical standpoint, the study of variability is the essence of the scientific approach. Excluding substantial rural-urban differences seriously handicaps the study of the drug industry. Rural drug problems receive little attention for several reasons: (1) the wide geographic dispersion of marijuana producers; (2) an urban bias among researchers, the media, and Federal enforcement agencies; (3) rural communities are often closed to outsiders and local residents may be reluctant to tell strangers about local deviants; and (4) those in rural areas are often particularly suspicious of government agencies. References