Stages of drug market change during disaster: Hurricane Katrina and reformulation of the New Orleans drug market

BackgroundIn recent years, numerous weather disasters have crippled many cities and towns across the United States of America. Such disasters present a unique opportunity for analyses of the disintegration and reformulation of drug markets. Disasters present new facts which cannot be “explained” by existing theories. Recent and continuing disasters present a radically different picture from that of police crack downs where market disruptions are carried out on a limited basis (both use and sales). Generally, users and sellers move to other locations and business continues as usual.MethodsThe Katrina Disaster in 2005 offered a larger opportunity to understand the functioning and processes by which drug markets may or may not survive. Utilizing a variety of qualitative data including ethnographic field notes, in-depth interview transcripts, and focus group transcripts, we investigate the operation of the New Orleans drug market before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina.ResultsOur data clearly indicate that drug markets go through a series of stages in the wake of disaster in which they disintegrate and then reconstitute themselves. In the case of New Orleans, the post-Katrina drug market was radically different from the pre-Katrina drug market.ConclusionUltimately this manuscript presents a paradigm which uses stages as a testable concept to scientifically examine the disintegration and reformulation of drug markets during disaster or crisis situations. It describes the specific processes – referred to as stages – which drug markets must go through in order to function and survive during and after a natural disaster.