Reuters reported Sept. 6 that while supplies of heroin, cocaine, and crack have dried up, addicts can still get morphine, sleeping pills, and prescription opiates like Oxycontin. Many of the drugs were looted from local pharmacies in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; likewise, many of the users are trading looted goods for drugs.

In one Bourbon Street transaction witnessed by a reporter, an addict traded two new pairs of Levi's jeans for a couple of morphine pills. Asked about his business fortunes in the wake of the storm, the dealer said, "We're surviving. The good thing is that all these places here were looted, so there is stuff all over the place."

The going cash rate for morphine was $40 a tablet, while Oxycontin was being traded at $20 a pill.

Anthony Goffredo, a heroin addict, said he needed to get out of New Orleans because he had run out of methadone. He said he wanted to go to Brooklyn so he could enroll in a new methadone program.

"I bought some morphine pills a few days ago from a kid who had looted a pharmacy. But now I've got nothing and I really need some drugs to help get me out," said Goffredo. "I can't make that journey with it ... My blood pressure feels so low, man. I think if I walk I'll just fall down. I live just seven blocks from here and it looks like a mile from where I'm sitting."

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