[tripzilch]

> tl;dr - "Poverty is a more powerful influence on the outcome of inner-city children than gestational exposure to cocaine."

It's a good thing to back up with a scientific study and facts, but I'd hardly call it surprising (the article did) except to those who have no idea what this poverty looks like.

Another interesting part of the bias might be that I've never heard the term "crack baby" (or similar) outside the context of US ghettos, while cocaine is used globally in many countries.

[throwit1979]

except to those who have no idea what this poverty looks like.

I think this is a very important observation. Sometimes poverty doesn't look anything like this.

I'd like to note that although I grew up in "technical" poverty, e.g. in a small rural community with a median income of $11,121, very few saw much violence or any of the markers of poverty lifestyle this article talks about.

Although my anecdote is not scientific, I do think this has much more to do with observed culture than with an arbitrary signifier like poverty. Urban poverty and rural poverty are entirely different things, for instance. As is transient and temporary versus chronic poverty.

[thisisrobv]

Great point. I would love to see some study done around this. It's the combination of poverty and crime that leads to such disaster in most cases. It's not even a lack of community, in my experience both have very strong social ties to one another. Either way, it's a shame we still can't figure this out in America.

[mhurron]

Crack Cocaine and Cocaine are not quite the same thing. Cocaine is known and used in the US as well. Crack was a US ghetto phenomenon, it is not used as some code-word for blacks.

The results are surprising in the sense that what was said, and generally believed even by professionals in the field, at the height of the issue was that it would be impossible for these children to develop at all. Poverty has a known affect on development, it was believed that these crack babies wouldn't even have the chance to hit that level.

The surprise comes from that the previous belief couldn't be more wrong. The actual effect was basically non-existent.

[ams6110]

Crack Cocaine and Cocaine are not quite the same thing.

Do you have any links to support this? I had always heard that chemically, they are both "cocaine" and the "crack" preparation simply allows quicker intake and thus a faster high.

[mhurron]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_cocaine

Crack is the freebase form of Cocaine. It is preferred for smoking (quicker intake ,less needed) because of the change in the evaporation point.

Oddly, Crack Cocaine is just the active ingredient (cocaine), powder cocaine is cocaine hydrochloride.

My original point is that no, calling it crack cocaine is not codeword for poor [insert racial slur for black people] doing stupid things, an assertion that the OP tried to make by implying bias in the article and saying the rest of the world just calls it cocaine.

[bodyfour]

More specifically, they're equivalent if you were going to freebase the cocaine. Freebasing powdered cocaine is possible, but its complicated and dangerous -- for instance Richard Pryor famously almost died from burns received while doing it: http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20076864,00....

Crack is basically freebasing in kit form.