The Baton Rouge Treatment Center is one of the few places left in Louisiana where people with opiate addictions can get methadone treatment, the Chicago Tribune reported Sept. 11. The program has added 200 new patients since the storm.

Thousands of people with alcohol and other drug problems are among the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and many are suffering from withdrawal as they are cut off from their drug of choice or medications that prevent craving and other withdrawal symptoms, like methadone.

Programs like the Betty Ford Center are taking in patients displaced from facilities like Charity Hospital in New Orleans, which lost its 20 detox beds in the storm. Counselors have come to the afflicted region to volunteer their time and bring in supplies. Alcoholics Anonymous has held meetings for refugees in the Houston Astrodome and the George R. Brown Convention Center.

"We are admitting a 19-year-old girl who was in a treatment center in New Orleans and was displaced," said John Schwarzlose of the Betty Ford Center. "She went from there to a shelter. I don't know if she's been drinking and using. We'll find out when she gets here."

Louisiana had 1,800 people on treatment waiting lists prior to the hurricane. "Very few people realized that Louisiana had 32 medical detox beds for 4 million residents," said Samantha-Hope Atkins of Hope Networks, a recovery advocacy group in Baton Rouge. "Twenty are in Charity Hospital, which is gone."

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has allocated $600,000 to pay for treatment for storm victims. "We can anticipate ... spikes in abuse after an event like this," said SAMHSA Administrator Charles Curie.

The Chicago Recovery Alliance is trying to bring $50,000 worth of donated Suboxone, a drug for treating opiate addiction, to Louisiana to distribute to hurricane victims who are not yet in treatment programs. "Only about one in eight heroin addicts are in methadone treatment," said Sarz Maxwell, medical director of the Alliance. "What about those seven in eight who now have their cop spots completely wiped out, who are chasing around everywhere trying to get off their sick? Those are the ones I'd really like to reach."

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