Pubdate: Fri, 09 Nov 2001
Source: Nanaimo Daily News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2001 Nanaimo Daily News
Contact:  http://www.nanaimodailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1608
Author: John Anderson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

CRACK BABIES AND OTHER DRUG MYTHS

The first casualty of war is truth, so the saying goes, and that would 
appear to include the "war on drugs".

Hemp or "loco-weed" grew wild in the United States and southern Canada long 
before settlers arrived. Marijuana barely attracted attention from 
government until the 1930s when cannabis was propagandized as "killer weed" 
and a "sex-crazing drug menace" which caused insanity, violence and bizarre 
sexual behaviour.

Legislation was quickly passed in the US to make criminals out of cannabis 
users. Some historians believe these laws reflected the dominant white 
society's discrimination against Mexican Americans in Western 
states.  Throughout the 1940s and 50s, marijuana was associated with Black 
jazz musicians and moral decadence.

In 1937, cannabis was made illegal in Canada without a word of debate in 
the House of Commons. Penalties were severe and remained that way until the 
1960s. However, a more lenient shift in judicial attitudes emerged when 
young, white, middle-class adults were arrested for cannabis crimes in the 
late 1960s and early 70s. South of the border, eleven states comprising 
one-third of the US population decriminalized possession of small amounts 
of marijuana.

The more tolerant attitude towards cannabis began to erode in the 
1980s.  President Reagan's wife Nancy led a propaganda front against 
marijuana by deploying themes about pathological individuals, moral laxity, 
and the assured pathway of marijuana to hard drugs. The popular media once 
again demonized drug users, blurring the boundaries between all forms of 
drugs and consumption to make them equally dangerous. "There's no such 
thing as a soft drug" became part of the mantra sung by anti-drug 
organizations.

Cocaine hasn't always been illegal in North America. In the late nineteenth 
century, it was used for a wide range of ailments in patent 
medicines.  Cocaine was an ingredient in Coca-Cola until 1903 when it was 
removed from the recipe. Apparently, Southern residents in the USA feared 
the results of Black Americans getting their hands on cocaine in any form.

In 1903, the New York Tribune reported "many of the horrible crimes 
committed in the southern states by the coloured people can be traced to 
the cocaine habit". In 1914, Literary Digest quoted a Dr. Christopher Koch 
as saying, "most of the attacks upon white women of the South are a direct 
result of a cocaine crazed Negro brain". These proclamations might be 
dismissed today because of their place in past history, but drug mythology 
survives to this day.

Remember crack babies? Reference is still made to these children in 
ordinary talk and from authorities that should know better. "Crack babies" 
were infants born to mothers who used crack cocaine during pregnancy. 
According to national media, these children were premature, suffered brain 
lesions and seizures, had poor motor skills and later developed behavioural 
symptoms of impulsiveness, irritability and learning disorders. They were 
typically the children of Black Americans.

By the mid-1990s, a body of medical evidence accumulated to demonstrate the 
mythical features of crack babies. Mothers of children with these symptoms 
were also likely to have poor diets, use fewer medical services during the 
pre-natal period, drink alcohol, smoke tobacco and were more likely to 
acquire sexually transmitted diseases during pregnancy.

Two leading physicians who originally claimed a link between a mother's 
cocaine use and childrens' physical and mental problems recanted their 
earlier statements in medical journals. The worst damage to these kids 
occurs after birth in deprived social, learning and physical 
surroundings.  Poverty - not mothers' prenatal drug use - is the major 
determinant of children's mental and physical health.

The moral panic based on the crack baby mythology helped push 
discriminatory drug laws in the USA during the 1980s. "Crack cocaine" was 
sold in small amounts for $2 to $5 a dosage, making it affordable for 
impoverished, inner-city residents who were mainly Black Americans. The 
Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988 criminalized simple possession for 5 
grams of crack cocaine with a minimum five-year sentence. But the more 
expensive powdered cocaine - the choice of wealthier (and white) drug 
consumers - could result in a probation term for the same quantity.

The past and recent history of drug laws demonstrates a disturbing 
pattern.  Racial minorities are frequently associated with the "drug 
problem" which fosters racist sentiments among the public. Tax dollars are 
spent and bureaucracies expanded to rid society of psychoactive substances 
or forcibly treat their users.

Alcohol and tobacco remain the deadliest drugs used in North America today, 
killing far more Canadians than all illicit drugs combined. Curiously, 
these normal drugs have escaped the moral condemnation of substances 
associated with the "dangerous classes".
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MAP posted-by: GD