Onset of Substance use among Transnational and Domestic Agricultural Workers: Social Relations and Place of Initiation

Abstract

Farm workers differ from both urban and rural populations by their short-term, irregular employment and, for those who migrate, frequent travel. Overall, they enjoy few of the work benefits of other occupations, and they generally include members of minority populations that experience high levels of drug use. As such, they comprise an ideal population for the study of initiation of substance use. Although most farm workers have rural backgrounds as children, adolescents or adults, there are growing numbers of workers from small urban cities as well as metropolitan areas. Based on a series of 173 interviews in the American South with 119 men and women with a range of experience in agriculture, the present analysis examines locales where initiation of substance use takes place and identifies social relationships that figure in the context of first and subsequent use among transnational and U.S.-born workers in agriculture.