Pubdate: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON) Copyright: 2001 The Ottawa Citizen Contact: 1101 Baxter Rd.,Ottawa, Ontario, K2C 3M4 Fax: 613-596-8522 Website: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/ Author: Joanne Laucius 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. - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager