A Philadelphia study found no gap in health and life outcomes for babies exposed to crack versus one

[Judi Lynn]

A Philadelphia study found no gap in health and life outcomes for babies exposed to crack versus ones who weren’t
March 10, 2015 12:30PM ET
by Todd Reed - @tee_reed & Sarah Hoye - @Sarah_Hoye

PHILADELPHIA – From the moment she was born, much of the country assumed Jaimee Drakewood was doomed. Her mother had her in the throes of a crack cocaine addiction. She was, as the politicians dubbed it, a crack baby.

"I immediately get defensive," Drakewood, now 25, says about hearing the term. "It's another stigma, another box to put me in. It bothers me, because it feels like I already had my life written off before I was able to live it."

Drakewood was born when the war on drugs was in full swing, and the crack baby was the poster child.

“Go to a neonatal unit, if you can get in, there are between 100 and 200 percent capacity up and down the East Coast, and the reason is crack babies being born,” Independent candidate Ross Perot declared during a presidential debate in 1992. “Baby’s in the hospital 42 days; typical cost to you and me is $125,000. Again and again and again, the mother disappears in three days, and the child becomes a ward of the state because he’s permanently and genetically damaged.”

More:
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2015/3/10/crack-baby-myth.html

[Warpy]

1. They found the same thing in the late 80s and mid 90s

The children suffered no aftereffects that weren't attributable to poverty.

Poverty is what stunts children, yet the war is against drugs, not the men who have been fleecing us all for decades.