NEW ORLEANS — Hurricanes are changing the nature of violent drug crimes in the South and law-abiding communities need regional strategies to meet the threat, a New Orleans area criminologist said Wednesday.

“The hurricane (Katrina) brought out the very complex drug economics that have created the (drug-related) slaughter in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and elsewhere,” Peter Scharf, a research professor at the Tulane University School of Public Health, said after an address to the New Orleans Rotary Club at Harrah’s Casino Hotel.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita barreled through south Louisiana in 2005, claiming more than 1,400 lives, destroying some 200,000 homes and resulting in widespread dislocation of tens of thousands of people from the New Orleans metro area — including drug dealers and violent criminals, Scharf said.

“Drug dealers got to meet drug dealers they didn’t meet before,” the professor said. “Young drug dealers from New Orleans got closer to their suppliers in west Houston. There is a stereotype that (criminals) left New Orleans for Houston. The reality is that they (go) back and forth between the two cities.”

For the rest of the article, CLICK HERE.