© 2003 BY THE JOURNAL OF DRUG ISSUES JOURNAL OF DRUG ISSUES 0022-0426/03/01 99-118 __________ Denise C. Herz, Ph.D., is currently an associate professor of criminal justice at California State University, Los Angeles. She served as the Omaha, Nebraska ADAM site director from 1996 to 2001 and has assisted five jurisdictions in Nebraska plan drug treatment courts. Her current research interests include substance abuse and mental health issues among juvenile offenders and the evaluation of juvenile drug treatment courts. Contact dherz@exchange.calstatela.edu. Rebecca Murray, M.A., is currently working on her Ph.D. in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. Her primary interest is in environmental criminology. EXPLORING ARRESTEE DRUG USE IN RURAL NEBRASKA DENISE C. HERZ, REBECCA MURRAY Since 1987, the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program (ADAM—formerly known as the Drug Use Forecasting Program) has documented the prevalence and type of arrestee drug use across the nation. Unfortunately, this research is limited to urban or metropolitan areas, possibly because of presumed low levels of both crime and drugs in rural areas. The purpose of this paper is to present the importance of researching arrestee drug use in rural areas using data collected from the Rural ADAM Pilot Program. Specifically, this study examines the prevalence and type of arrestee drug use in four rural Nebraska counties and compares these results to those found in Omaha, Nebraska, which is a current ADAM site. Results indicated that arrestee drug use is similar to that in urban areas and the type of arrestee drug use varies across rural counties as well as between rural and urban areas. Most importantly, rural arrestee methamphetamine use appeared to exceed Omaha arrestee use in one rural area. These findings have substantial implications for planning at the local, state, and federal levels. INTRODUCTION A substantial amount of research examines the prevalence of drug use among offenders and contributes to our knowledge on drugs and crime (Belenko & Peugh, 1998; Chaiken & Chaiken, 1990; Brooke, Taylor, Gunn, & Maden, 1993; Peters, Greenbaum, Edens, Carter, & Ortiz, 1998; Warner & Leukefeld, 2001). One of the most instrumental programs in this area is the ADAM program, which tracks the prevalence of drug use among arrestees in 34 sites across the nation (Department