CRACK BABIES AND OTHER DRUG MYTHS

The first casualty of war is truth, so the saying goes, and that would
appear to include the "war on drugs".

Hemp or "loco-weed" grew wild in the United States and southern Canada long
before settlers arrived. Marijuana barely attracted attention from
government until the 1930s when cannabis was propagandized as "killer weed"
and a "sex-crazing drug menace" which caused insanity, violence and bizarre
sexual behaviour.

Legislation was quickly passed in the US to make criminals out of cannabis
users. Some historians believe these laws reflected the dominant white
society's discrimination against Mexican Americans in Western
states. Throughout the 1940s and 50s, marijuana was associated with Black
jazz musicians and moral decadence.

In 1937, cannabis was made illegal in Canada without a word of debate in
the House of Commons. Penalties were severe and remained that way until the
1960s. However, a more lenient shift in judicial attitudes emerged when
young, white, middle-class adults were arrested for cannabis crimes in the
late 1960s and early 70s. South of the border, eleven states comprising
one-third of the US population decriminalized possession of small amounts
of marijuana.

The more tolerant attitude towards cannabis began to erode in the
1980s. President Reagan's wife Nancy led a propaganda front against
marijuana by deploying themes about pathological individuals, moral laxity,
and the assured pathway of marijuana to hard drugs. The popular media once
again demonized drug users, blurring the boundaries between all forms of
drugs and consumption to make them equally dangerous. "There's no such
thing as a soft drug" became part of the mantra sung by anti-drug
organizations.

Cocaine hasn't always been illegal in North America. In the late nineteenth
century, it was used for a wide range of ailments in patent
medicines. Cocaine was an ingredient in Coca-Cola until 1903 when it was
removed from the recipe. Apparently, Southern residents in the USA feared
the results of Black Americans getting their hands on cocaine in any form.

In 1903, the New York Tribune reported "many of the horrible crimes
committed in the southern states by the coloured people can be traced to
the cocaine habit". In 1914, Literary Digest quoted a Dr. Christopher Koch
as saying, "most of the attacks upon white women of the South are a direct
result of a cocaine crazed Negro brain". These proclamations might be
dismissed today because of their place in past history, but drug mythology
survives to this day.

Remember crack babies? Reference is still made to these children in
ordinary talk and from authorities that should know better. "Crack babies"
were infants born to mothers who used crack cocaine during pregnancy.
According to national media, these children were premature, suffered brain
lesions and seizures, had poor motor skills and later developed behavioural
symptoms of impulsiveness, irritability and learning disorders. They were
typically the children of Black Americans.

By the mid-1990s, a body of medical evidence accumulated to demonstrate the
mythical features of crack babies. Mothers of children with these symptoms
were also likely to have poor diets, use fewer medical services during the
pre-natal period, drink alcohol, smoke tobacco and were more likely to
acquire sexually transmitted diseases during pregnancy.

Two leading physicians who originally claimed a link between a mother's
cocaine use and childrens' physical and mental problems recanted their
earlier statements in medical journals. The worst damage to these kids
occurs after birth in deprived social, learning and physical
surroundings. Poverty - not mothers' prenatal drug use - is the major
determinant of children's mental and physical health.

The moral panic based on the crack baby mythology helped push
discriminatory drug laws in the USA during the 1980s. "Crack cocaine" was
sold in small amounts for $2 to $5 a dosage, making it affordable for
impoverished, inner-city residents who were mainly Black Americans. The
Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988 criminalized simple possession for 5
grams of crack cocaine with a minimum five-year sentence. But the more
expensive powdered cocaine - the choice of wealthier (and white) drug
consumers - could result in a probation term for the same quantity.

The past and recent history of drug laws demonstrates a disturbing
pattern. Racial minorities are frequently associated with the "drug
problem" which fosters racist sentiments among the public. Tax dollars are
spent and bureaucracies expanded to rid society of psychoactive substances
or forcibly treat their users.

Alcohol and tobacco remain the deadliest drugs used in North America today,
killing far more Canadians than all illicit drugs combined. Curiously,
these normal drugs have escaped the moral condemnation of substances
associated with the "dangerous classes".