Lies our drug warriors told us

Reno News and Review ^ | August 24th, 2006 | Dennis Myers

[cryptical]

The reporters made their way through the dim lights and small huts of Virginia City's Chinatown. In the huts, one of the reporters later wrote, "A lamp sits on the bed, the length of the long pipe-stem from the smoker's mouth; he puts a pellet of opium on the end of a wire, sets it on fire, and plasters it into the pipe much as a Christian would fill a hole with putty; then he applies the bowl to the lamp and proceeds to smoke--and the stewing and frying of the drug and the gurgling of the juices in the stem would well nigh turn the stomach of a statue. John likes it, though; it soothes him, he takes about two dozen whiffs, and then rolls over to dream."

The reporter, Mark Twain, whose Victorian sensibilities made him uncomfortable when faced with the scenes in Chinatown, nevertheless was one reporter who did not use his coverage of opium use to demonize the Chinese. Others were less principled. They set the pattern of much of the news coverage of drug use that followed in the next century and a half.

The Comstock journalists produced racist and inaccurate news coverage that relied on uninformed sources (law enforcement instead of physicians), inflamed the people of the town, and produced the nation's first anti-drug law, an ordinance banning opium smoking within Virginia City, enacted on Sept. 12, 1876. The local politicians, discovering that fear of drugs and minorities sold, were just as irresponsible, blaming everything from poor sanitation to child molestation on Chinese drug "fiends." When the local prohibition ordinance failed, they pushed for a statewide law which failed (and, of course, would be followed by national laws that failed).

The entire ineffectual template of the drug war with which we live today was established there in Virginia City--journalists who gave short shrift to science and health-care professionals in favor of treating politicians and law enforcers as drug experts in lurid and exploitive news coverage; politicians who exploited legitimate concern to promote race hatred and reelection; law enforcers who confused cause with effect and exploited public anxiety to promote punitive laws; and all three who treated prohibition as a solution: "Let severe measures be adopted and the sale of the drug will soon be suppressed!" observed a Nye County newspaper. The nation has been chasing that siren's song ever since.

A century later, Reno physician Wesley Hall was the president-elect of the American Medical Association. On April 2, 1970, he used the forum provided by his new stature to announce that in June, the AMA would release a study showing that marijuana deadened the sex drive and caused birth defects. The statement caused a flap, but no such study was ever released. A few weeks later, Hall claimed he had been misquoted but also claimed that he had not bothered to correct the record because "it does some good." By then, correcting the record did no good--Hall's comments kept getting cited and quoted until experience and the passing years showed their falsity.

Over the course of the war on drugs that began in Virginia City and accelerated decade by decade, such lying became an indispensable weapon of that war. The lies sometimes took the form of outright falsehoods. At other times, they took the form of letting errors stand uncorrected or leaving out essential information. Drug warriors--whether journalists, politicians, police or public employees--need lies because the drug war can't be sustained without them. Lies are the foundation of the drug war, and the five listed here are the tip of the iceberg. There are many, many more, and they are relevant to a marijuana measure that will appear on this year's Nevada ballot.

1. Gateway drugs In the early 20th century, Dr. Charles Towns was a leading public figure and drug "expert," operator of the Towns Hospital in New York. He propounded a theory that would have a long life--that some drugs "lead" to harder drugs. "The tobacco user is in the wrong," he wrote. "It undermines his nervous strength. It blunts the edge of his mind. It gives him 'off-days,' when he doesn't feel up to his work. It always precedes alcoholism and drug addiction. I've never had a drug case or an alcoholic case (excepting a few women) that didn't have a history of excessive smoking. Inhaling tobacco is just as injurious as moderate opium smoking."

The gateway theory evolved until baby boomers raised in the 1950s on "marijuana leads to harder stuff" learned its falsity from personal experience in the 1960s. If that experience and the findings of science were not enough, there was practical evidence that some drugs actually functioned as barrier drugs, not gateway drugs. Whenever mild drugs were removed as a barrier, harder drugs came into use. In 1910, Congress received data showing that during a period of alcohol prohibition in New England, morphine use jumped by 150 percent. In 1968, a Johnson administration crackdown on marijuana in Vietnam reduced supply and provoked an upsurge in heroin use. In 1969 in California, a six-day Nixon administration crackdown on the Mexican border dried up marijuana supplies and filled heath-care facilities with a flood of heroin cases. California physician David Smith told Newsweek, "The government line is that the use of marijuana leads to more dangerous drugs. The fact is that the lack of marijuana leads to more dangerous drugs."

The gateway theory went into decline after such experiences but always made a comeback because drug war dogma requires it. Today it is back, alive and well.

And as it turned out, "Doctor" Towns was a quack--a failed insurance salesman who was not a physician and peddled a bogus "cure" for drug addiction.

2. Marijuana’s not medicine. Today, we're accustomed to medical experts like Washoe County District Attorney Richard Gammick denying that marijuana is medicine (Gammick: "I didn't support medical marijuana because it doesn't exist."), but in 1937, it was a novel argument, since marijuana was universally acknowledged as a beneficial medicine. It was listed in the American Medical Association's Pharmacopeia (list of approved medications) and remained there even after being made illegal until federal officials brought pressure on the AMA. (It is still in the British Pharmacopeia.)

What may have been the first time this lie was told was a key moment in the drug wars. Congress was considering legislation that year to outlaw non-medicinal marijuana at the behest of the lumber and liquor lobbies and fueled by newspaper hysteria over marijuana. By continuing to protect physicians' use of the drug, Congress recognized its medical value.

Though there was an exception in the bill for physicians, the medical community was still concerned about the restrictions. There was apparently an effort to slip the ban through Congress quietly, but AMA lobbyist William C. Woodward found out about a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the bill and showed up to demand actual evidence of the danger of the drug instead of the anecdotal newspaper horror stories to which the committee had been listening: "It has surprised me, however, that the facts on which these statements have been based have not been brought before this committee by competent primary evidence. We are referred to newspaper publications concerning the prevalence of marijuana addiction. We are told that the use of marijuana causes crime. But yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of prisoners who have been found addicted to the marijuana habit. An informed inquiry shows that the Bureau of Prisons has no evidence on that point. You have been told that school children are great users of marijuana cigarettes. No one has been summoned from the Children's Bureau to show the nature and extent of the habit among children."

The committee members tore into Woodward spitefully, giving him the kind of grilling they did not give to drug warriors.

One member told Woodward, "We know that it is a habit that is spreading, particularly among youngsters. ... The number of victims is increasing each year." Woodward replied, "There is no evidence of that." He kept insisting on evidence instead of hearsay.

The committee ended Woodward's testimony without thanking him or even formally ending his testimony, brusquely calling the next witness.

One of those present at that hearing was U.S. Rep. Carl Vinson of Georgia. When the marijuana ban reached the House floor on June 10, 1937, he was the floor manager. To give some idea of the care with which the bill was enacted and the depth of knowledge from which lawmakers were working, there was this exchange:

U.S. Rep. Bertrand Snell of New York: "What is the bill?"

U.S. Rep. Sam Rayburn of Texas: "It has something to do with something that is called marijuana. I believe it is a narcotic of some kind."

Vinson: "Marijuana is the same as hashish."

Snell: "Mr. Speaker, I am not going to object, but I think it is wrong to consider legislation of this character at this time of night."

U.S. drug czar John Walters came to Nevada to campaign against a medical marijuana measure and told a lurid tale of highly potent marijuana. Photo By D. Brian Burghart

Then came a question that led to the lie whose consequences are still with us. Snell asked, "Mr. Speaker, does the American Medical Association support this bill?"

The response fell to Vinson. A truthful answer might well derail the bill. Future chief justice of the United States Vinson stood and lied: "Their Doctor Wentworth [sic] came down here. They support this bill one hundred percent."

The bill was approved.

3. Crack babies. The report went on the air at 5:34:50 p.m. on Sept. 11, 1985, with an on-screen headline of "Cocaine and pregnant mothers." In 1 minute and 50 seconds, Susan Spencer of CBS ignited an inflammatory national myth--the crack baby. Footage of a screaming and trembling baby going through withdrawal after supposedly being born to a mother who used cocaine was backed by interviews with physicians Ira Chasnoff and Sidney Schnoll. Chasnoff had just published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that had caught Spencer's eye and prompted the report. Spencer ended the report with the lines, "The message is clear. If you are pregnant and using cocaine, stop."

University of Michigan scholars Richard Campbell and Jimmie Reeves have tracked the events which followed. As other reporters and media chased the story, it evolved. Spencer's report was a health warning. By the time her CBS colleague Terry Drinkwater and others recycled the story, it was an attack on the mothers (Washington Post: "The Worst Threat Is Mom Herself"). As the firestorm built, politicians and others got involved, and the babies themselves were demonized. A judge called them "tomorrow's delinquents," and Democratic U.S. Rep. George Miller of California said, "We are going to have these children, who are the most expensive babies ever born in America, are going to overwhelm every social service delivery system that they come in contact with throughout the rest of their lives." Boston University President John Silber suggested the babies were soulless--"crack babies who won't ever achieve the intellectual development to have consciousness of God."

The drumbeat against the children became so fierce that a commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association asked, "Why is there today such an urgency to label prenatally cocaine-exposed children as irremediably damaged?" And Emory University's Dr. Claire Coles said of the "crack baby" label, "If a child comes to kindergarten with that label, they're dead. They are very likely to fulfill the worst prophecies."

Hospitals started threatening to turn mothers over to police; prosecutors started charging mothers with child abuse. (The Nevada Legislature rejected a statute permitting such prosecutions, and when the Washoe sheriff tried to charge a mother anyway, the Nevada Supreme Court slapped it down.) One case--Ferguson v. City of Charleston--made its way all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that hospitals had to stop testing for drugs without patient consent. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine indicated that the drug habits of white women were more likely to be overlooked by physicians or hospitals, while African Americans were reported to police.

And it was all built on a pile of sand.

Spencer, like most reporters, did not know how to read a scientific study, and the Chasnoff study was flawed. The study involved just 23 women, and its author himself called it inadequate.

Worse, according to former Wall Street Journal reporter Dan Baum, who wrote an influential account of the drug war, physicians noticed something about video reports by Spencer and others that ordinary viewers--and the reporters themselves--missed. The trembling babies were exhibiting behavior that is not produced by cocaine. Being withdrawn from coke produces sleep, not the trembling and screaming shown in the sensational reports. Baum wrote, "It dawned on [Dr. Claire] Coles that the TV crews were either mixed up or lying. They were filming infants suffering heroin withdrawal and calling them 'cocaine babies.' "

Moreover, the physicians also felt that drugs were not the cause of the problems being attributed to the babies. Lack of nutrition and health care during pregnancy were. A Florida report noted, "In the end, it is safer for the baby to be born to a drug-using, anemic, or diabetic mother who visits the doctor throughout her pregnancy than to be born to a normal woman who does not."

The controversy arose at a time when both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and President Reagan had sliced apart the "safety net" that had long existed for poor families. By 1985, prenatal care and nutrition were less accessible. Federal deregulation of the insurance industry had cut low-income families loose from health insurance. Federally funded medical care had been slashed. While journalism had raced off after the mock cause of unhealthy babies, the real causes had received far less press scrutiny.

It was a case study of journalism taking a complex story and simplifying it into inflammatory and irresponsible coverage that made the problem worse. It is now pretty clear to experts and insiders what happened. But the damage is done. Today, there are 103,000 hits on Google for crack baby and 107,000 for crack babies.

4. Instant addiction. The March 17, 1986, issue of Newsweek hit the newsstands on March 10. Newsweek has long served as the unofficial house organ of the drug war. That alliance has often suspended the critical faculties of its staff members. Never was that failing more dangerous than in that 1986 issue with its "Kids and Cocaine" cover story. Inside was an interview with Arnold Washton, operator of a drug hotline who was known for hyperbole--he had once told NBC that crack was a form of Russian roulette. In the Newsweek article he said, "There is no such thing as recreational use of crack. It is almost instantaneous addiction."

Newsweek did not bother checking the accuracy of the incendiary claim before publishing it. Instead, acting as stenographers instead of journalists, the magazine's editors printed it without a competing viewpoint.

The assertion shot through newsrooms around the nation with the speed of sound, and those newsrooms passed it along like carriers of a disease. And it was untrue. Dr. Herbert Kleber, perhaps the leading cocaine expert in the United States has said, "No drug is instantly addictive."

The claim was as potent in its effect as crack. Laws, fueled by the frenzy created by "instantly addicting" crack, were enacted. One of them, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, imposed lower penalties on powder cocaine (used mostly by whites) than on crack cocaine (used mostly by African Americans). In practice, whites tended to be diverted into treatment more than blacks. All four members of Congress from Nevada voted for the bill.

There were those who tried to brake the inflammatory news coverage. The Washington Journalism Review eventually ran a cover story quoting Peter Jennings saying that using crack "even once can make a person crave cocaine as long as they live." Existing research, the Review said, disproves that statement. But the piece didn't appear until 1990. The Columbia Journalism Review did not directly challenge the claim but did urge greater skepticism toward drug war claims.

It did little good. The belief in the instantly addicting qualities of cocaine has entered popular culture. "The crack cocaine of ..." joined "If we can put a man on the moon ..." as an indispensable phrase. There are 47,800 Google hits for it--"the crack cocaine of junk food," "the crack cocaine of gambling addiction," "the crack cocaine of sexaholics," and so on.

5. Marijuana’s rising potency That distinguished medical expert, Washoe County District Attorney Richard Gammick, said on Sam Shad's television program, "This is not the marijuana that people used to roll and do a little doobie back at Haight-Ashbury and some of the other things that went on back 30, 40 years ago. This is 10 times stronger in THC [tetrahydrocannabinol] content."

This has become one of the most common new myths about marijuana. White House drug czar John Walters loves it and used it when he came to Reno and Las Vegas to campaign against a 2002 marijuana ballot measure. "What many people don't understand is that this is not your father's marijuana," he told the Washington Post in a story about the Nevada initiative. "What we're seeing now is much more potent." In fact, no reliable evidence substantiates Gammick's 10-times-stronger claim, much less Walters' 30-times-stronger claim.

What they leave out of their sales pitch are these little nuggets of information:

• The claims of higher potency are based on a 1960s study that used unusually low-potency marijuana for testing purposes.

• The Bush administration itself will not substantiate the Walters/Gammick-style claims about potency. The federal Potency Monitoring Project reports negligible fluctuations in potency over the years. The U.S. Department of Justice's "National Drug Threat Assessment" for 2005 said that higher potency marijuana is not marketable because it makes tokers sick--"more intense--and often unpleasant--effects of the drug leading them to seek medical intervention."

• Potency is a so-what issue--when marijuana is more potent, tokers smoke less.

Walters managed to combine two of the lies we listed here into a single sentence when, on one occasion, he talked about border smuggling of pot that he claimed was highly potent: "Canada is exporting to us the crack of marijuana." It's the kind of false statement that would have fit right into 1870s Virginia City.

[mugs99]

The year before the 1914 Harrison Anti-drug Act 1.3% of the US population was addicted to drugs. In 1970, 1.3% were addicted to drugs. In 2003, 1.3% were addicted to drugs.

Liberties lost, over two million in prison and drug addiction has remained the same!
.

[mugs99]

I am not sure how the laws protect drug gangs

Not only do drug laws protect the gangs by creating the underground market, the use of the Commerce Clause to fight the drug war gives direct legal protection to the drug gangs.

Lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department argued to the Supreme Court that homegrown marijuana represented interstate commerce, because the garden patch weed would affect "overall production" of the weed, much of it imported across American borders by well-financed, often violent drug gangs.

Think about that. They argued that home-grown weed would "affect" the inter-state commerce of "violent drug gangs"...It would reduce their commerce!

By accepting that argument, the Supreme Court has ruled that individuals growing marijuana unfairly reduce the inter-state trade of violent drug gangs!
.

[zeugma]

Remind me in the future to check the posters name before reading the comment as it might have been posted by you,

I always look for Laz's posts.  Sometimes, when I'm reading something really twisted, I think to myself, "Must be Laz". 9/10, it is. 

[zeugma]

The War On Drugs is not a war on drugs. It's a war on people.

Almost right. In addition to being a war against the people, it's also a war against the Constitution.  It is the latter war that causes it to continue long after sane people would have looked at the consequences and decided it wasn't a good idea, as with prohibition I.

[PaxMacian]

What does conducting a terror campaign upon the people
have to do with a government of the people, by the people and for the people?

[William Terrell]

I agree with you about the nature and precedence of the budding young American socialist systems. But the only way to dismantle them is to either starve them (remove funds) or bankrupt them (over-access).

I doubly doubt that health issues even remotely related to cannabis use is a drain on public funded health care. You might wish this would be otherwise, as do I.

I think the only way now to ruin the public's ignorant positive attitude of socialist systems is to allow them to experience financial pain leading to the realization of the source of the pain.

This means you and I have to feel the pain along with them until a critical mass is reached.

I'm afraid all that is a pipedream, though. I predict much blood spilled before we can rid ourselves of the socialist tumor.

Politicians on both sides love it.

[Mojave]

What does conducting a terror campaign upon the people

What does lying have to do with rational debate?

[Mojave]

I agree with you about the nature and precedence of the budding young American socialist systems.

Don't worry. The NRST national universal welfare system will never pass.

[PaxMacian]

Pax wrote: What does conducting a terror campaign upon the people
have to do with a government of the people, by the people and for the people?

Mojave wrote: What does lying have to do with rational debate?

It is no lie that the lack of results in a generations long civil war(WOD) relegates all action taken by the government as significant only for the TERROR that it inflicts upon the citizenry in effort to control their appetites. (Not a Constitutionally mandated federal power!) The DEAmen are the Taliban of America.

FBI definition of terrorism: "The unlawful use of or threatened use of force or violence against individuals or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological objectives."

[pageonetoo]

I came home one day and caught my oldest son and some friends in my back yard hitting a bong, they all went to jail that day.

What lesson did you teach them? To be blindly obedient to authority? If he had enough early training, you could have already known about him. Where was he before he went out to the back yard?

You certainly earned their respect, I am sure. (/sarcasm)

I drove up to visit a friend of mine in Marshall, Va. one day. He lived on the side of a mountain, on 108 acres. His 4500 sqft chalet backed up to the mountain, with a low roof.

Sitting on top of his house were he and one of my sons. I parked, walked around the house, and climbed up on the roof with them. As I sat down, Jim reached over and handed me a joint. I had smoked them with him previously, but never around my son.

I first started smoking the stuff while stationed with the US Navy. I was on a Mid-shipmens cruise in 1967, and some friends and I decided to visit Haight-Ashbury. As we walked down the street, all sort of things were offered, and we decided to try some pot. We bought a matchbox full of Mexican weed for $2.

We had rented a hotel room, and went back there to smoke it. We emptied out a cigarette, and stuffed it into the tube. It was better than I thought. I never cared for drunkenness, because of the loss of control and other defects associated with it. I did not experience that with pot.

I smoked a lot over the years, but had quit when my oldest son was born. I hadn't smoked it until meeting Jim. He was not a pusher. He had a business employing a lot of good people. he is a contributing member of society, more than most I know.

Anyway, after Jim took the joint back from me, he handed to my son. He hit it and grinned at me. I couldn't have been mad at him, obviously. We sat on the roof and watched the sun set and then burned some steaks, played with the dogs and frisbees on the hill, and crashed in our bedrooms, tired and satiated. All in all, we had a wonderful time.

You should wish your son turned out like my kids. One is a cop, another a school teacher. One is in securty, and the other customer service. My youngest is 17, still in HS, works at a motel cleaning rooms (her choice...yucccchhhhhhh!), and wouldn't go near drugs or alcohol. She loves to draw, create with words, and play her various musical instruments. they all have talents of their own. She can have anything she wants from me, but likes to be independent. All of my kids have been.

You should be ashamed of yourself, friend, IMHO. You failed your son, and taught him nothing. Then you shipped him off for what? He will only die in jail, in spirit. Your son is your responsiblity, not the jailer's...

Whose bitch did he become, since he couldn't be yours any more?

[A CA Guy]

So considering the push for drug legalization we have kept according to your sources the status at minimum growth.

Great success then.

[mugs99]

Politicians on both sides love it

Democrats want to be your Mommy and Republicans want to be your Daddy.
.

[Zon]

The 1.3% drug addiction is constant regardless of prohibition. Drug prohibition created high profits which in turn caused illicit drug dealers to push drugs onto children. If anything government kept the drug addiction rate from declining. With your support government turned over the drug trade to criminals and organized crime. There is no government oversight, no quality control, no potency regulation and drugs are sold to school children thanks to you and drug-warriors.

Continued in post 183

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition -- LEAP. Watch the 13 minute introduction video. Its excellent. The Web site is most informative. Introduction video. Real Media (14 mb) - MPEG-4 (23 mb) 

[sean327]

"You should wish your son turned out like my kids. One is a cop, another a school teacher. One is in securty, and the other customer service. My youngest is 17, still in HS, works at a motel cleaning rooms (her choice...yucccchhhhhhh!), and wouldn't go near drugs or alcohol. She loves to draw, create with words, and play her various musical instruments. they all have talents of their own. She can have anything she wants from me, but likes to be independent. All of my kids have been.

You should be ashamed of yourself, friend, IMHO. You failed your son, and taught him nothing. Then you shipped him off for what? He will only die in jail, in spirit. Your son is your responsiblity, not the jailer's...

Whose bitch did he become, since he couldn't be yours any more? '

That's what I love about the druggie crowd. Everyone of you clowns claim to be non-judgemental, but you are just as bad, if not worse than everyone else. If you read my post all the way through you will see that my son has turned out pretty good. He is Specalist E-4 in the army, is married, and has a little girl. He also thanked me for doing what I did. This incident wasn't the 1st. I had enough at that point, and was at the end of my rope with him.

I know I didn't elaborate on the problems that have happened in my family in the past, so here is why I detest drugs. When I was a junior in high school my cousin overdosed and died. We were close untill we got to high school, in 10th grade he quit playing football and started running with a crowd of douchebags. A year later he was dead. Why? T0 get cheap thrills? To be a rebel? Bullshiite! he wasted his lif on dope and broke his familie's hearts. My wife got the crap beat out of her on a regular basis by her Methhead ex-husband, he messed her up pretty bad physicaly and mentaly. I met her a year after she left him, and had to deal with threats to her and myself from this jackass. It's taken a good part of our 18 years together for her to get over the crap he did to her.

So go ahead and judge me for trying to protect my family from this crap, I really dont give a rats a$$ what anyone thinks. And like I've said before, what you do in the privacy of your own home or property is none of my business, as long as it doesn't affect me or mine.

[AmericaUnite]

I don't know if the article will come trough without registration so here's an excerp. One of my son's who was adopted at 2 days old and was exposed to fat soluable marijuana throughout the pregnancy. He is disabled. His memory problems I attribute to MJ.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/515684_5
"Physiologic Effects of Prenatal Cocaine Exposure in Neonates

The fetus is at significant risk from cocaine exposure secondary to maternal use. Cocaine has a low molecular weight and is both hydrophilic and lipophilic. These properties allow significant levels of cocaine to cross the placenta and pass through the blood brain barrier. The metabolism of cocaine in the fetus is known to be considerably slower than that of the adult. Fetal exposure to cocaine is, thus, prolonged (Schenker et al., 1993; Wagner et al., 1998). A study by Mahone and colleagues (1994) found cocaine and its derivatives to not only be transferred to the fetus via diffusion into the umbilical cord and within the placental vessels, but also to be in the amniotic fluid and then swallowed by the fetus. The dose, the duration of drug ingestion, and the point in gestation at which the fetus is exposed to cocaine determines the effect the drug may have on the fetus. The majority of research on the topic points to a myriad of clinical manifestations that present in the infant/young child.
Intrauterine Growth (Birth Weight, Length, and Head Circumference) and Prematurity

Variations in intrauterine growth in infants with a history of prenatal cocaine exposure have been observed. IUGR and prematurity of the newborn have been associated with maternal cocaine use. Most studies have found increasing rates of low birth weight, deficits in birth length and head circumference for gestational age, and prematurity among cocaine exposed newborns despite differing methodologies (Bada et al., 2002; Chiriboga, Brust, Bateman, & Hauser, 1999; Richardson, Hamel, Goldschmidt, & Day, 1999; Singer et al., 2002). However, other studies have found limited or no significant associations in birth weight, length, head circumference, and/or prematurity (Bandstra et al., 2001; Bateman & Chiriboga, 2000; Eyler, Behnke, Conlon, Woods, & Wobie, 1998).

Singer and colleagues (2002) compared 218 infants who were prenatally exposed to cocaine and 197 who were not and reported that cocaine use during pregnancy was associated with an increase in premature labor and delivery, lower birth weight, smaller head circumference, a decrease length at birth, and shorter gestational age. Similarly, Bandstra et al. (2001) noted cocaine-associated deficits in birth weight and length but not head circumference. Prematurity was not found by Bandstra et al. (2001), as the infants studied were full-term. Both Singer et al. (2002) and Bandstra et al. (2001) included a target population of primarily African American pregnant women of low-socioeconomic status with cocaine use, identified confounding variables including poly-drug use (i.e., alcohol, marijuana, tobacco, etc.), and controlled for these variables in comparison groups.

In a study examining 295 infants prenatally cocaine-exposed whose mother received no prenatal care as compared to 98 infants whose mother did receive prenatal care by the fifth month of pregnancy, Richardson et al. (1998) noted that during early pregnancy infants from both groups exhibited a reduction in their gestational age, birth weight, length, and head circumference. The authors concluded prenatal cocaine-exposure was associated with IUGR regardless of prenatal care. Confounding factors (alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, other illicit drugs, maternal and infant variables) were controlled for and at the end of each trimester both groups were questioned about their use of cocaine/crack, alcohol, marijuana, tobacco and other drug use.

In contrast to the findings of Richardson et al. (1998), a secondary analysis of data from the Maternal Lifestyle Study (MLS) found that only after 32 weeks of gestation did infants prenatally cocaine-exposed exhibit a decline in their birth weight, length, and head circumference (Bada et al., 2002). Covariates controlled for included clinical site, opiate use, alcohol, tobacco and marijuana use, and maternal and infant characteristics.

In contrast, Eyler et al. (1998) discovered that no significant differences were found between infants prenatally exposed to cocaine and non-exposed infants in terms of birth weight and length while examining 154 pregnant women identified as cocaine users with a matched control group. However, smaller dimensions in head and chest circumferences were found in infants whose mothers used cocaine and who also smoked tobacco. Cocaine users were found to have more infants born prematurely in comparison to the control group. All pregnant women were from a rural population, and the majority were African American and of low-socioeconomic status. Subjects were excluded if illicit drugs were used besides cocaine and marijuana; alcohol and tobacco were statistically adjusted for. The authors also reported that pregnant women were more likely to use a larger amount of cocaine during their first trimester. This is of great concern because this period of gestation is most critical for proper fetal development.

Bateman and Chiriboga (2000) investigated the relationship between birth weight and head circumference with the quantity of cocaine exposure in 240 non-randomized full-term infants from a well-baby nursery in a single inner-city hospital. Levels of cocaine exposure were measured using radioimmuno-analyses of the hair (RIAH) in the third trimester of pregnancy. Measurements indicated: no exposure (136 infants), low exposure (52 infants), and high exposure (52 infants). Adjustments were made for the confounding variables of use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and opiates during pregnancy as well as infant and maternal characteristics. A dose-response effect of cocaine on the neonates' head circumference or, as they defined it, "head wasting" was only found in the high exposure group. Chiriboga et al. (1999) and Kuhn and colleagues (1999) reported similar findings. Chirboga et al. (1999) also found a decrease in birth lengths among infants prenatally exposed to cocaine at high levels of exposure.

In summary, research indicates prenatal exposure to cocaine may affect the infant's gestational age at birth, length, weight, and head circumference, although the findings are not conclusive or consistent."

[AmericaUnite]

I forgot to say he was exposed to cocaine for the whole pregnancy as well and was positive for it as well. The rest of the MedScape article goes into more about the negative effects of cocaine.

[pageonetoo]

That's what I love about the druggie crowd. Everyone of you clowns claim to be non-judgemental, but you are just as bad, if not worse than everyone else.

That's what I love about the drug warriors. They all have someone who OD'd and wasted their lives. It's amazing that so many of my "druggie" friends own their own business and pay lots of taxes.

I wonder if alcohol had anything to do with it? I wonder where the parents were, whne the time came to prepare the child for the future, instead of wringing hands over how things turned out, after the fact?

So go ahead and judge me for trying to protect my family from this crap, I really dont give a rats a$$ what anyone thinks.

Yep, it always works best to close the door after the cows are out to pasture. I judged you on the way you raise your child. You must have missed the classes on compassion and love...

BTW, if you don't care what others think, why bother to visit the thread?

[William Terrell]

Thanks, but I worry. If the NRST benefits the federal government at the expense of public financial sovereignty, it will pass. If it benefits the public and acknowleges a greater public sovereignty in any way, it will not pass.

This post is not intended to hijack this thread and start a NRST bloodbath.

[William Terrell]

Do you support the federal government's war on drugs, specifically cannabis?

[Zon]

This post is not intended to hijack this thread and start a NRST...

Not to worry. It was Roscoe's intent and why he injected the off-topic NRST comment.