Newsgroups: alt.drugs
From: [VALEIK S R] at [ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu] ()
Subject: Crack Baby part II
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 1994 22:59:30 GMT


This is also printed from "Drugs, Society and Human Behavior", by Oakley Ray
and Charles Ksir, 6th edition 1993

	One toxicity issue that has received recent attention is the effect on
the unborn child of crack use during pregnancy.  The image of the "crack baby"
is a powerful one:  born to a mother who was smoking crack during her pregnancy
and up until the time of birth, the infant is addicted at birth, suffers
withdrawal agonies, and continues to suffer from developmental abnormalities. 
These tragedies occur at too high a rate no matter how many there are, but jus
how many are there?  How would we find out?
	The Partnership for a Drug-Free America is well known for its
high-impact television ads, including the famous egg in the frying pan ("this
is your brain on drugs").  In 1992 they began running an ad showing crack in a
baby bottle, claiming that "a crack baby is born every five minutes."  This
would work out to about 100,000 per year.  Are there that many?  The 1991
Household Survey data estimated that about 280,000 women of all ages may have
used crack at some time during the year.  Perhaps most of these were of
childbearing age, but most were not using the drug frequently and most were not
pregnant, so the 100,000 "crack baby" figure would seem high.  A call to the
Partnership office revealed that they had obtained the 100,000 figure from the
1989 _National Drug Control Strategy_ (20) published by the government, but the
estimated 100,000 "cocaine babies" referred to on p. 44 of that document seems
to be an estimate of the number of babies whose mothers used any form of
cocaine, even once, at some time during the pregnance.  We have heard people
use numbers ranging from 60,000 to more than 300,000 in referring to crack
babies.  If we mean only those babies who are born addicted due to recent heavy
crack smoking by the mother, then all these numbers are probably too high.

20: The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy:  _National drug
control strategy_, Washington, DC, 1989, US Government Printing Office



I printed these articles as yet another example of the propagandization (is
that a real word??) of information that the anti-drug people rely on. 
steve