Innocents Conscripted In War On Drugs: Study

'Crack Babies' Treated As Propaganda Tool, Not Medical Issue, Doctors Argue

The war on drugs may be losing its poster baby.

The "crack baby" phenomenon is overblown, says a study published in today's
Journal of the American Medical Association.

The baby irrevocably damaged even before birth is "a convenient symbol for
an aggressive war on drug users because of the implication that anyone who
is selfish enough to irreparably damage a child for the sake of a quick
high deserves retribution," said Dr. Wendy Chavkin, a Columbia University
professor of clinical public health, in an editorial that accompanies the
article.

The article analysed 36 previous studies, suggesting that research has not
considered other factors that may also have contributed to "crack baby"
characteristics such as low birth weight, behavioural problems and low
scores on mental development tests.

Women who take crack cocaine also often smoke, drink and use other illegal
substances, the article points out. All of these can also contribute to
these characteristics. Long-term studies showed that exposure to crack
cocaine in the womb does not cause a different risk from those posed by
other substances and extreme poverty.

The crack baby image "makes it easier to advocate a simplistic, punitive
response than to address the complex causes of drug use," says Dr. Chavkin.

There is increasing medical pressure in the U.S. to fight the war on drugs
on new fronts, investing more in health care and alleviating poverty and
less on drug enforcement and prisons.

In recent years, some medical researchers have argued that the crack baby
was more a media creation than a medical reality. Five years ago, Dr. Ira
Chasnoff, a U.S. expert on the topic and president of the National
Association for Families and Addiction Research and Education, said some
babies exposed to crack before birth lead healthy, normal lives.

"The single biggest factor is the environment in which the child is being
raised, not the prenatal cocaine use," he said.

Today's Journal article comes out only a week after the U.S. Supreme Court
decided that hospitals cannot test pregnant women for drugs without their
consent and turn the results over to police. The case stemmed from a
Charleston, South Carolina, hospital where suspect mothers were tested for
cocaine use. Some were arrested immediately after childbirth, while others
were shackled to their hospital beds.

As that case was being heard in court, many U.S. medical associations lined
up to argue that drug addiction is more complex than a mere lack of will power.

Punitive drug enforcement policies do not deter drug use, said a letter to
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher whose signatories included the
American Public Health Association, the National Council of Alcoholism and
Drug Dependence and the National Medical Association.

The letter called the image of crack babies "sensationalistic" and said the
Charleston policy was turning doctors into "agents of the drug war."

Lynn Paltrow, a lawyer for the New York-based National Advocates for
Pregnant Women said the Journal analysis will go far to debunk the
destructive myths of prenatal cocaine exposure.

"The image of crack mothers is overwhelmingly African America women. People
already willing to write them off had a new chemical reason to do so," she
said.

"There have been serious attempts to expand the war on drugs to women's
wombs. The U.S. has to decide that instead of having a war on drugs and
pouring money into prisons, there has to be a war on poverty."

Meanwhile, the Journal article does not deny that prenatal cocaine use
causes problems.

"I'm saying there are more serious risks to children's development," said
Dr. Deborah A. Frank, a Boston University associate pediatrics professor
who led the analysis.