DRUG ADDICTS FACE NEW CHALLENGES AFTER STORM

Before Katrina hit, untold numbers of its victims already were suffering a
different wrath: drug addiction. Now, thousands of addicts are thought to
be among the hundreds of thousands displaced by the storm, seeking drug
fixes, recovery or simple compassion in the new places they are temporarily
calling home.

The diaspora has created challenges in communities from Alexandria, La.,
and Baton Rouge, to Houston and San Antonio, where taxed addiction
counselors already have full caseloads and, in some cases, all staffed
treatment beds are full.

Some addicts who relocated to shelters have sought prescriptions for the
painkiller OxyContin and other narcotics. Others tell intake workers they
are users or in a perilous phase of recovery -- in need of methadone to
keep withdrawal and drug cravings at bay. Still others are given away by
the body tremors, sweating, diarrhea or vomiting that withdrawal can bring.

"They thought they had a viral infection going through the 'dome, there
were so many people going through withdrawal," Robert Bacon, a psychiatrist
at a methadone clinic in Houston, said about illness among evacuees at the
Astrodome.