Photo: LOGAN CYRUS/AFP/Getty
Natural disasters can have devastating effects beyond those typically expected for drug users, according to several studies that have resurfacedin the wake of Hurricane Florence.
Additionally — the article, titled “Drug markets during the Katrina disaster” — found that many of those interviewed used drugs in congregate shelters, or all together avoided the safe spaces in order to take substances. Further, some of the group that participated in the study was found to have looted stores and homes of drug dealers, and used violence to “achieve their drug-related aims.”
Chip Somodevilla/Getty
During the a disaster, Dunlap and Golub concluded, “many poor drug users place risks on themselves, their families, their communities and ultimately on rescue workers.”
“During the week after the storm 28 percent rescued others or volunteered with aid groups; 60 percent experienced withdrawal; 27 percent shared drug injection or preparation equipment or injected with people they normally would not inject with,” the article, called “Immediate impact of Hurricane Sandy on people who inject drugs in New York City,” said.
Additionally, 70 percent of participants that were in opioid maintenance therapy were not able to get sufficient doses.
The article concluded that such natural disasters can be seen as a “big event” in the life of a drug user.
On Friday, Hurricane Florence made landfall around 7:15 a.m. EST near Wrightsville Beach on the North Carolina coastline. The hurricane hit as a category 1 storm, leaving destruction and flooding in its wake.
RELATED VIDEO: Hurricane Florence Weakened but Still Expected to Be Devastating as Some Refuse to Evacuate
.
“If you’re in withdrawal, you’re going to make a desperate call,” Robert Childs, a drug policy consultant at the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, told theHuffington Post. “You may then turn to street drugs or be forced to go through a detox process that you didn’t want.”
source: people.com
