From: doctor1@cbnewse.cb.att.com (patrick.b.hailey)
Subject: Re: Invade Colombia ?!?
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 08:09:25 GMT

This is a very long answer, but hopefully convincing.  The converted are 
allowed to skip it.  However, if you hang in for the second part, you'll
come to something written by me about the Netherlands etc.. decriminalization
or "harm reduction" model.  I know I've got the flavor right, but factual
corrections would be welcomed.  Once it's done, it'll be sent to several
newspapers, and probably published by none of them.  But we must keep trying...

> about "crack babies"

An excerpt from "The Drug War's Dirty Secrets: What Warriors Won't Tell You",
an excellent article from "Pitch, Kansas City's News and Arts Weekly",
Nov 27-Dec 3 1991.  This was posted here ages ago by someone.

[secret #6]: The Percentage Of Crack Babies Born At Any Given Hospital Is
             Approximately Zero.
   While continually heckling me at a public presentation, a medical man
finally shouted in fury, "You're saying all the crack babies coming into my
emergency room since 1976 are my imagination!"  I asked if he agreed that crack
first appeared around 1986, and the medical man nodded.  "Then," I went on,
"the first ten years you observed crack babies it was your imagination, because
the substance didn't exist."  The medical man looked embarassed and shut up.
   Drug warriors often claim 375,000 crack babies are born annually in the
United States, each one with developmental deficits costing $500,000 to $1
million in medical care.  That claim can be tested in several ways.
   First we can check if neonatal units are indeed expending $375 billion per
year on crack babies.  The latest published figures for national health
expenditures are from 1987, contained in the "Statistical Abstract of the
United States 1990".  The grand total by consumers, government, and
philanthropies for all health purposes (including hospital care, nursing homes,
physician office calls, prescriptions, medical research, and hospital building
construction) was $500 billion.  Costs for all hospital care were $195 billion.
Crack baby expenditures cited by drug warriors are 2 times greater than the
total sum spent for all care of all persons in all hospitals.
   Second, we can extrapolate from drug use patterns.  Drug warriors claim that
a single use of crack devastates a fetus, but this claim is incorrect.  The
claim is also sad because it encourages abortion among women desiring
pregnancy.  To cause developmental damage in a fetus, a pregnant woman must
abuse crack in the way that hospitalized alcoholics abuse alcohol.  Studies of
cocaine users find that 2.5 percent to 10 percent abuse the drug -- in all
varieties.  Given four million live births annually in the United States,
375,000 crack babies born is about 9.4 percent.  To get that many crack babies,
every pregnant woman in the United States must be on cocaine.
   In reality, few women are using cocaine when they become pregnant, and
almost all of those who are users will stop upon learning they are pregnant.
The percentage of crack users among women of childbearing age -- let alone
pregnant -- is so small that the federal government is unable to make an
estimate (National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Household Survey on Drug
Abuse: Population Estimates 1990).
   Yet another way to determine the number of crack babies is to phone
hospitals and ask them.  St. Luke's reports 0 percent.  Research, 0 percent.
Baptist, 0 percent.  KU Med Center, 0 percent.  That doesn't mean they never
see a crack baby, but the number is so small as to be virtually unnoticeable.
[Typist's Note: All names above are hospitals in Kansas City, Missouri, for
those of you who aren't Missourians.]
     ....
   In hospitals serving affluent women who can buy enough cocaine to wreck
fetal development, the percentage of crack babies should be higher than in
hospitals serving impoverished women.  The opposite is reported.  We should ask
whether cocaine is being blamed for medical problems caused by poverty.
Cocaine was available for a century before anyone first noticed a problem among
pregnant women in the 1980s.  In 1989 analysts examining files of the Society
of Pediatric Research discovered that in 81 percent of reports claiming fetal
damage from cocaine, medical personnel failed to determine if the pregnant
woman actually used cocaine.
   "The scientific world is in the midst of correcting itself," declares Nancy
Day, associate professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at the University of
Pittsburgh School of Medicine.  "There will never be this horde of crack-crazed
babies affecting the school system.  We are not finding the birth defects that
earlier studies have reported."

>Pretending that the laws are the problem is like suggesting that all crime
>be eliminated by rescinding all laws. Intoxicated people are dangerous &
>making more drugs avail. in purer forms will just make the situatiom worse.

   Marijuana is legal in the Netherlands.  People gather in "hash cafes" to
socialize and drink coffee.
   The police are not soldiers in a war, but keepers of the peace.  If a cafe
discreetly sells narcotics cheaply to known addicts, it is left in peace.  If
it pushes these drugs to non-addicts, sells impure drugs, or otherwise
endangers the community, they jail the owners and shut it down for good.
   Instead of hysteria and misinformation, citizens are provided unbiased drug
information.  Interveinus (sp?) drug users are provided clean needles.
   There is no opportunity for huge drug profits or organized crime in this
environment.  There is no profit in pushing drugs and creating addicts. 
These policies widen the gap between soft drugs and hard drugs (including
alcohol), and the results speak for themselves.
   "From the moment that soft drugs become readily available, the younger
generation lost interest" says a director from the Dutch Ministry of Justice. 
"The drugs problem is no longer very much on the agenda".  Drug addiction,
use, and crime has plummeted.  There are almost no addicts under 21.
   In an environment of peace and reason, most people choose not to become
addicts.  In the Netherlands, those that do are treated with dignity, as sick
people should be.  Many maintain their health and have jobs.  The incidence
of AIDS amongst Dutch addicts is 2% and stable.  In New York City, it's 20%
and rising.
   Sweden and parts of Australia have decriminalized marijuana, with positive
results.  Germany may be moving in the same direction.
   But isn't marijuana dangerous?  Our government and the Partnership for a
Drug Free America says it is.  But the Partnership's largest contributors are
pharmaceutical, tobacco, and liquor companies.  Shouldn't you wonder whether
you're receiving unbiased information?
   The Drug Policy Foundation, a think-tank whose members include a Harvard
Medical School professor, Baltimore mayor Kurt Schmoke, and Dr. Carl Sagan,
regularly publishes papers debunking the government-induced drug hysteria. 
So does Scientific American magazine, the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, and many other respected organizations.
   Did you know that all drugs were legal in the U.S. before 1914, or that
George Washington used marijuana?  Did you know that several U.S. judges have
called for legalization, along with "management guru" Tom Peters?
   Even former drug czar William Bennett acknowledged that "non-addicted users
still compromise the vast bulk of our drug involved population".  But he also
said that "users who maintain a job...should face stiff fines...have their
names published...should be subject to...employer notification, overnight or
weekend detention...forfeiture of the cars they drive..."
   Why?  One day they are peaceful, productive citizens, the next their
families are on welfare.  Our government has declared war on all 40 million
occasional, peaceful users of some drug other than deadly alcohol or
nicotine.  That's one-sixth of the country!
   Europe is discovering that the answer lies in liberty and peace.  We are
descending into madness.


   Thanks awfully,
              Patrick

Newsgroups: alt.drugs,talk.politics.drugs