CRACK ARGUMENT HAS CRACKS

I'm writing in response to the Sept. 30 story, "Prenatal drug tests go to
top court."

This all began in 1985, when Dr. Ira Chasnoff made an incorrect assumption
that cocaine would do permanent damage to the fetus, and a frenzy of media
exaggerations followed that produced the mythical "crack baby" scare. Nobody
seemed to notice that if the number of estimated crack babies was accurate,
crack had to be making men pregnant.

Dr. Chasnoff's initial 1985 study launched much of the media juggernaut. By
1992, Chasnoff was saying, "Poverty is the worst thing that can happen to a
child," and expressing dismay at the press' misuse of medical research.

"It's sexy," he suggested of the Dec. 6, 1992 Associated Press "crack baby"
story. "It's interesting, it sells newspapers and it perpetuates the
us-vs.-them idea."

Dr. Chasnoff recently appeared on ABC's "Nightline," saying that further
research has shown that in the unlikely event that crack does damage the
fetus, the damage is minor, short-term and correctible. This is starkly
different from alcohol, which is by far the most common source of serious,
lifelong damage due to use by the mother.

Many others have been prosecuted, like Lori Griffin, due to baseless
political rhetoric and media hyperbole.

As a researcher for the Media Awareness Project and the Drug Policy Forum of
Texas, I have been unable to find any other media coverage of Dr. Chasnoff's
presentation of the facts.

The Globe-News would do its readers a service by reporting on the myth-based
hysteria that led the South Carolina authorities to a shameful end.

DON BECK, Odessa