13 ms·

Science vs. hysterical racism, yet again. There's a reason it's "crack baby", and not "cocaine baby". Helps imprison the right sort of person. (http://en.wikipe

Science vs. hysterical racism, yet again. There's a reason it's "crack baby", and not "cocaine baby". Helps imprison the right sort of person. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act) There's a much more dangerous drug than cocaine, for babies. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_cocaine_exposure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_cocaine_exposure) It's alcohol, a legal drug. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_alcohol_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_alcohol_syndrome)

smoyer 13y ago
My wife was a early-childhood development specialist at our local Easter Seals and the kids with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome were very sad. It's totally preventable, and the lack of understanding of consequences is devastating.
- bittired 13y ago
  Agreed. Don't drink too much when pregnant. But, a short glass of wine once a week or so isn't excessive.
  - JshWright 13y ago
    A glass of wine a _day_ wouldn't be excessive.
    - colomon 13y ago
      In 1970, a glass of wine a day was what the doctor suggested my mother should drink during her pregnancy.
    - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
      A glass of wine a day, normal home glass rather than a pub glass, may be more than the UK recommended allowance for a female.
- klawed 13y ago
  >It's totally preventable, and the lack of understanding of consequences is devastating. While the behavior that causes FAS is easy to stop for most women, for some segment of the population (those who are addicted to alcohol) it is seemingly impossible to eliminate or moderate alcohol consumption for even 1 week, let alone 9 months. The success of preventing FAS should correlate directly to advances in treating alcohol addiction.
rayiner 13y ago
Alcohol isn't really that dangerous for babies either. The prevalence of fetal alcohol syndrome is less than 5% for babies of women who drink more than 14 drinks per week during pregnancy: http://www.motherisk.org/prof/updatesDetail.jsp?content_id=299 http://www.motherisk.org/prof/updatesDetail.jsp?content_id=2.... There's very little evidence that low levels of alcohol consumption during pregnancy are bad for babies: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2023984,00.html http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2023984,00.ht.... Indeed, the available data shows the opposite: babies whose mothers drink lightly during pregnancy have better balance and higher IQs: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57589867/moderate-drinking-during-pregnancy-may-not-harm-babys-neurodevelopment http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57589867/moderate-drinki.... This is largely due to maternal predisposition; higher-IQ women are more likely to drink during pregnancy. It turns out that the placental barrier is pretty awesome.
- raverbashing 13y ago
  You're presenting facts, the "total abstinence" people don't like that. I find it funny how the "total abstinence" people come up with such amount of unproven facts, like "any consumption of alcohol" will cause harm. You'll be hard pressed to find a mother that hasn't consumed any alcohol whatsoever during pregnancy in Europe. This looks like it works as well as the "total abstinence" for sex works.
  - brazzy 13y ago
    >You'll be hard pressed to find a mother that hasn't consumed any alcohol whatsoever during pregnancy in Europe. You are very, very wrong about this.
    - raverbashing 13y ago
      Yes, I said it wrong. What I should have said is this: It's trivial to find a woman that has consumed alcohol during pregnancy Especially in the cases of older woman (whose sons and daughters are adults now)
  - 13y ago
Spooky23 13y ago
My dad worked in an environment heavily impacted by the crack epidemic. It was real, and the hysteria was based on the horrific situations that that existed. Smugly determining that "crack baby" was some racist code word cooked up to imprison black people is missing the point. Crack lowered the price point of cocaine dramatically, and was devastating to inner city communities. You should note who the study didn't look at -- premature babies or the rates of premature delivery of crack abusers vs the average.
- rpedroso 13y ago
  As the article notes: Hurt's study enrolled only full-term babies so the possible effects of prematurity did not skew the results. Nonetheless the head of the study does note that crack cocaine can induce premature labor, among other issues: Hurt, who is also a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, is always quick to point out that cocaine can have devastating effects on pregnancy. The drug can cause a problematic rise in a pregnant woman's blood pressure, trigger premature labor, and may be linked to a dangerous condition in which the placenta tears away from the uterine wall. Babies born prematurely, no matter the cause, are at risk for a host of medical and developmental problems. On top of that, a parent's drug use can create a chaotic home life for a child. I think the OP's point is that some (political) groups attribute minority group failure to advance socioeconomically to drug use, whereas this study suggests that poverty has a very relevant effect on child development (and thus prospects of long-term economic success). That's not to say that there is no truth to the "crack baby" myth, but that like the "welfare queen" myth, it is part of a strategy to delegitimize welfare programs or socioeconomic criticisms by blaming the low-income groups for their lack of success.
- tome 13y ago
  Why is crack cheaper? Google and Wikipedia are quite unhelpful on this question.
  - geoffw8 13y ago
    I can't speak with any real authority, but I would suggest its down to the fact crack is cocaine mixed with further agents, allowing there to be a higher yield from the same amount of cocaine. You'd have to also consider whether smoking the drug is more intense than sniffing, which would possibly compensate for the fact theres less cocaine. Not a source per se, but some interesting info here on consumption methods: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/drugs/delivery.html http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/drugs/deliv...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Alex3917 13y ago
Caffeine is actually much more dangerous for babies than either crack or alcohol. After caffeine the second highest drug-related risk factor may actually be not smoking weed; that is, mothers who don't smoke enough weed during pregnancy may have a much higher rate of infant mortality: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/100/1/79 http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/100/1/79
- Killah911 13y ago
  > mothers who don't smoke enough weed I don't see any part where the talk about the "amount" of drugs consumed? There were rougly 1600+ babies who were used as control and ~338 who tested positive for "weed". Some of the things that aren't broken down is the distribution for infant mortality. Perhaps there were outliers in the control group such as premature babies, which, if taken into account might explain some of the differences in mortality rates. Very funny though, with actual data to back up some part of your claim, made me think... :)
  - Alex3917 13y ago
    > I don't see any part where the talk about the "amount" of drugs consumed? What I meant is that if cannabis does confer some sort of protective benefit, then by definition the benefits would have to come from use that was above some minimum level, and perhaps also below some maximum level.
- thundara 13y ago
  FTA > Mortality rates between the drug-positive group or specifically, the cocaine-positive, morphine-positive, or cannabinoid-positive groups were not significantly different from the drug-negative groups (P < .3) A number of 8.9 to 15.7 deaths per 1k live births doesn't necessarily imply a protective factor, especially when considering all the variable factors and a much smaller sample size compared to the drug negative group. Also, caffeine isn't mentioned once on there, sure you don't mean cocaine?
pessimizer 13y ago
More like science as hysterical racism. The "crack baby" mark was created by a bunch of terrible studies in the 80s, and seized on as convenient by a lot of terrible people. This is simply the last of a large number of studies that have found no relationship, all of which occurred well after the time when the term was useful to those terrible people. This is science correcting itself after power has ceased to care what position science takes on the existence of the crack baby.
lisper 13y ago
> Helps imprison the right sort of person. While I agree with the general sentiment, it is worth noting that the original law that created the sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine, the anti-druge abuse act of 1986, was supported by the congressional black caucus [1] because crack was such a serious problem in the black community at the time. So it was not a case of white people conspiring to put black people in prison, it was black people trying to impose prohibition on themselves, which of course backfired badly as prohibition always does. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_the_War_on_Drugs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_the_War_on_Drugs
flexie 13y ago
Of the 110 "crack babies" followed for 25 years, only 12 finished college or were on track to finish college, while 2 were shot dead. So it's only 6 times more likely for inner city kids to graduate from college than to get shot to death?
- KMag 13y ago
  If you're poor, and especially if you're poor and have the "wrong" skin color, people don't expect you to get a college degree, so people don't push you to succeed. It was always an unspoken assumption that I would graduate from college, and people around me set up my life that way. Yes, the homicide rate is high, but I find the low college graduation rate more disturbing. On a side note: shot, stabbed, or strangled doesn't make much difference to the homicide victim or their loved ones. Hopefully you'd have the same reaction if two of them were stabbed to death.
  - flexie 13y ago
    Any kind of murder is terrible. 2/110 is an extremely high murder rate. I realise the sample is not representative, but still...
  - randomdata 13y ago
    > I find the low college graduation rate more disturbing. I was thinking it is rather high, all things considered. The statistical norm would expect only about 25 people to graduate out of that group. It would be interesting to compare against people in similar situations, but without the crack influence. I expect that the attainment rate will be similar.
  - notdrunkatall 13y ago
    >people don't expect you to get a college degree, so people don't push you to succeed. Is 'people' a euphemism for 'parents?'
    - randomdata 13y ago
      I'm not the previous poster, and my experience is the exact opposite, but I don't think so. My parents gave me the least amount of pressure to go to college of anyone. Teachers, peers, and other people of the community were much more adamant about it. I even remember a few people lecturing my parents, not even me directly, over the importance of me going to college. Not all communities, especially those on the poorer side, are like that at all. Education is even demonized in some locations. Parents are just a small part of the social attitudes towards such ventures.

smoyer 13y ago

My wife was a early-childhood development specialist at our local Easter Seals and the kids with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome were very sad. It's totally preventable, and the lack of understanding of consequences is devastating.

bittired 13y ago
Agreed. Don't drink too much when pregnant. But, a short glass of wine once a week or so isn't excessive.
- JshWright 13y ago
  A glass of wine a _day_ wouldn't be excessive.
  - colomon 13y ago
    In 1970, a glass of wine a day was what the doctor suggested my mother should drink during her pregnancy.
  - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    A glass of wine a day, normal home glass rather than a pub glass, may be more than the UK recommended allowance for a female.
klawed 13y ago
>It's totally preventable, and the lack of understanding of consequences is devastating. While the behavior that causes FAS is easy to stop for most women, for some segment of the population (those who are addicted to alcohol) it is seemingly impossible to eliminate or moderate alcohol consumption for even 1 week, let alone 9 months. The success of preventing FAS should correlate directly to advances in treating alcohol addiction.

rayiner 13y ago

Alcohol isn't really that dangerous for babies either. The prevalence of fetal alcohol syndrome is less than 5% for babies of women who drink more than 14 drinks per week during pregnancy: http://www.motherisk.org/prof/updatesDetail.jsp?content_id=299 http://www.motherisk.org/prof/updatesDetail.jsp?content_id=2.... There's very little evidence that low levels of alcohol consumption during pregnancy are bad for babies: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2023984,00.html http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2023984,00.ht.... Indeed, the available data shows the opposite: babies whose mothers drink lightly during pregnancy have better balance and higher IQs: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57589867/moderate-drinking-during-pregnancy-may-not-harm-babys-neurodevelopment http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57589867/moderate-drinki.... This is largely due to maternal predisposition; higher-IQ women are more likely to drink during pregnancy. It turns out that the placental barrier is pretty awesome.

raverbashing 13y ago
You're presenting facts, the "total abstinence" people don't like that. I find it funny how the "total abstinence" people come up with such amount of unproven facts, like "any consumption of alcohol" will cause harm. You'll be hard pressed to find a mother that hasn't consumed any alcohol whatsoever during pregnancy in Europe. This looks like it works as well as the "total abstinence" for sex works.
- brazzy 13y ago
  >You'll be hard pressed to find a mother that hasn't consumed any alcohol whatsoever during pregnancy in Europe. You are very, very wrong about this.
  - raverbashing 13y ago
    Yes, I said it wrong. What I should have said is this: It's trivial to find a woman that has consumed alcohol during pregnancy Especially in the cases of older woman (whose sons and daughters are adults now)
- 13y ago

Spooky23 13y ago

My dad worked in an environment heavily impacted by the crack epidemic. It was real, and the hysteria was based on the horrific situations that that existed. Smugly determining that "crack baby" was some racist code word cooked up to imprison black people is missing the point. Crack lowered the price point of cocaine dramatically, and was devastating to inner city communities. You should note who the study didn't look at -- premature babies or the rates of premature delivery of crack abusers vs the average.

rpedroso 13y ago
As the article notes: Hurt's study enrolled only full-term babies so the possible effects of prematurity did not skew the results. Nonetheless the head of the study does note that crack cocaine can induce premature labor, among other issues: Hurt, who is also a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, is always quick to point out that cocaine can have devastating effects on pregnancy. The drug can cause a problematic rise in a pregnant woman's blood pressure, trigger premature labor, and may be linked to a dangerous condition in which the placenta tears away from the uterine wall. Babies born prematurely, no matter the cause, are at risk for a host of medical and developmental problems. On top of that, a parent's drug use can create a chaotic home life for a child. I think the OP's point is that some (political) groups attribute minority group failure to advance socioeconomically to drug use, whereas this study suggests that poverty has a very relevant effect on child development (and thus prospects of long-term economic success). That's not to say that there is no truth to the "crack baby" myth, but that like the "welfare queen" myth, it is part of a strategy to delegitimize welfare programs or socioeconomic criticisms by blaming the low-income groups for their lack of success.
tome 13y ago
Why is crack cheaper? Google and Wikipedia are quite unhelpful on this question.
- geoffw8 13y ago
  I can't speak with any real authority, but I would suggest its down to the fact crack is cocaine mixed with further agents, allowing there to be a higher yield from the same amount of cocaine. You'd have to also consider whether smoking the drug is more intense than sniffing, which would possibly compensate for the fact theres less cocaine. Not a source per se, but some interesting info here on consumption methods: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/drugs/delivery.html http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/drugs/deliv...

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Alex3917 13y ago

Caffeine is actually much more dangerous for babies than either crack or alcohol. After caffeine the second highest drug-related risk factor may actually be not smoking weed; that is, mothers who don't smoke enough weed during pregnancy may have a much higher rate of infant mortality: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/100/1/79 http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/100/1/79

Killah911 13y ago
> mothers who don't smoke enough weed I don't see any part where the talk about the "amount" of drugs consumed? There were rougly 1600+ babies who were used as control and ~338 who tested positive for "weed". Some of the things that aren't broken down is the distribution for infant mortality. Perhaps there were outliers in the control group such as premature babies, which, if taken into account might explain some of the differences in mortality rates. Very funny though, with actual data to back up some part of your claim, made me think... :)
- Alex3917 13y ago
  > I don't see any part where the talk about the "amount" of drugs consumed? What I meant is that if cannabis does confer some sort of protective benefit, then by definition the benefits would have to come from use that was above some minimum level, and perhaps also below some maximum level.
thundara 13y ago
FTA > Mortality rates between the drug-positive group or specifically, the cocaine-positive, morphine-positive, or cannabinoid-positive groups were not significantly different from the drug-negative groups (P < .3) A number of 8.9 to 15.7 deaths per 1k live births doesn't necessarily imply a protective factor, especially when considering all the variable factors and a much smaller sample size compared to the drug negative group. Also, caffeine isn't mentioned once on there, sure you don't mean cocaine?

pessimizer 13y ago

More like science as hysterical racism. The "crack baby" mark was created by a bunch of terrible studies in the 80s, and seized on as convenient by a lot of terrible people. This is simply the last of a large number of studies that have found no relationship, all of which occurred well after the time when the term was useful to those terrible people. This is science correcting itself after power has ceased to care what position science takes on the existence of the crack baby.

lisper 13y ago

> Helps imprison the right sort of person. While I agree with the general sentiment, it is worth noting that the original law that created the sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine, the anti-druge abuse act of 1986, was supported by the congressional black caucus [1] because crack was such a serious problem in the black community at the time. So it was not a case of white people conspiring to put black people in prison, it was black people trying to impose prohibition on themselves, which of course backfired badly as prohibition always does. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_the_War_on_Drugs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_the_War_on_Drugs

flexie 13y ago

Of the 110 "crack babies" followed for 25 years, only 12 finished college or were on track to finish college, while 2 were shot dead. So it's only 6 times more likely for inner city kids to graduate from college than to get shot to death?

KMag 13y ago
If you're poor, and especially if you're poor and have the "wrong" skin color, people don't expect you to get a college degree, so people don't push you to succeed. It was always an unspoken assumption that I would graduate from college, and people around me set up my life that way. Yes, the homicide rate is high, but I find the low college graduation rate more disturbing. On a side note: shot, stabbed, or strangled doesn't make much difference to the homicide victim or their loved ones. Hopefully you'd have the same reaction if two of them were stabbed to death.
- flexie 13y ago
  Any kind of murder is terrible. 2/110 is an extremely high murder rate. I realise the sample is not representative, but still...
- randomdata 13y ago
  > I find the low college graduation rate more disturbing. I was thinking it is rather high, all things considered. The statistical norm would expect only about 25 people to graduate out of that group. It would be interesting to compare against people in similar situations, but without the crack influence. I expect that the attainment rate will be similar.
- notdrunkatall 13y ago
  >people don't expect you to get a college degree, so people don't push you to succeed. Is 'people' a euphemism for 'parents?'
  - randomdata 13y ago
    I'm not the previous poster, and my experience is the exact opposite, but I don't think so. My parents gave me the least amount of pressure to go to college of anyone. Teachers, peers, and other people of the community were much more adamant about it. I even remember a few people lecturing my parents, not even me directly, over the importance of me going to college. Not all communities, especially those on the poorer side, are like that at all. Education is even demonized in some locations. Parents are just a small part of the social attitudes towards such ventures.