CRACK BABIES AND POVERTY

The Chronicle has been giving excellent coverage to the issue of
drug-exposed infants (Aug. 30, "Back from the abyss; Crack cocaine babies
aren't doomed to failure, studies find"). I was misquoted several times in
the article or quoted out of context, however.

I was quoted as saying that poverty is the "only" factor in the
developmental delays and behavioral differences often attributed to crack
use. Within the full context of a lengthy interview, I said poverty is the
"primary" factor.

I also talked about the debilitating effects of prematurity that can be
directly attributed to the use of cocaine and the problem of poly-drug abuse
among crack users. The effects of alcohol, when used alone or combined with
other drugs, are far more damaging to the fetus than the use of crack alone.

I did not say crack has "no long-lasting detrimental effects" but, rather,
that the preponderance of research, to date, has not found long-lasting
detrimental effects.

Nonetheless, researchers are now examining more subtle changes that may
occur inside neurons and this research may -- or may not -- yield additional
insights.

Checked-by: Don Beck