This War Is No Way to Protect Children : Drugs: The problems will be compounded if we fail to see substance abuse as an unprecedented health crisis.

By most accounts, the No. 1 crisis facing American cities is drug abuse. “For about 75 years,” writes Howard Moody in the journal Christianity and Crisis, “we’ve been trying to prevent some of our citizens from using, abusing, importing and selling opiates and euphoriants. So far, the only real effect is more addicts, more drugs and more murder and mayhem on the ‘mean streets’ of our cities and, more recently, in our small towns.”

Over the past few years, there have been about 750,000 drug-related arrests nationwide. Interestingly, 75% of them were not for dealing and selling, but for possession. Federal as well as local law-enforcement efforts are largely aimed at reducing demand. While this is certainly appropriate, failing to recognize that demand constitutes an unprecedented public-health crisis rather than a law-enforcement monopoly will only compound current problems. Public policy on addiction and abuse must be radically refocused. A federal report fingers street-gang members, often the victims of economic deprivation and inadequate education, as the entrepreneurs of the underground crack economy.

Members of state and federal courts felt compelled recently to comment that the overburdened courts should be among the last resorts in the fight against drugs; they call for much more education, treatment, early intervention and research. Indeed, this addresses the demand issue in a more effective way. The punitive approach is too costly and reaps too few positive results.

The issue is particularly sensitive for the California Supreme Court, which recently ruled against a mother whose child was born addicted to illegal drugs. With this attempt to protect the child, the court has cleared the way for the denial of custody to a mother who abuses drugs.

This has far-reaching implications for the health-crisis dimension of drug abuse, documented by a recent report on infant mortality and low-birth weights. At a time when infant-mortality rates are declining nationwide, they are increasing in Los Angeles County. This phenomenon is most apparent among African American women and is traceable to the rise in crack cocaine addiction and the shortage of obstetric and prenatal care. The percentage of babies born weighing less than 5.5 pounds--a key predictor of mortality and disability--rose 17% overall and 32% among African American women in the county.

This situation looks even grimmer in view of the paucity of services for addicted mothers. The possibility of the courts’ removing children from addicted mothers only makes matters more ominous; as many as 2,500 drug-baby cases could enter Los Angeles-area courts annually. In the rush to criminalize everything and everyone associated with illicit drug use, Los Angeles could easily become part of the latest rash of copycat criminal prosecutions of drug-addicted mothers charged with endangering their fetuses--three-dozen women have faced this ordeal nationwide.

For African Americans generally, the problem gets worse because of the disproportionately low number of treatment centers in the very communities hit hardest by crack. According to Karen Bass, a physician assistant and clinical instructor at USC, since 1986, the year of the crack explosion, more than 50% of the 5,312 crack-related cases in the county involved African Americans.

The bulk of these cases came from the county’s Southeast Planning Area, which had only three community-based treatment centers and one private provider, the lowest number of all six county regional planning areas.

In light of these conditions, the African American community in Los Angeles has taken it upon itself to organize against what appears to be an intractable menace. In an unprecedented two-day conference today and Saturday, every sector of the community will concentrate on how to confront this crisis with more conviction, clarity and creativity.

Modeled after the successful Crack Cocaine and the African American Family Conference in San Francisco last year, this conference hopes to launch an extensive network of providers, community activists, corporate leaders, educators, social service agencies, media representatives, elected officials, parents, ex-users, clergy and law enforcement officials to attack this problem.

Those concerned about one of the most serious crises to face the nation, this city and the African American community in particular refuse to be resigned to these miserable conditions and will not rely largely on a punitive approach. Instead, the call is for a comprehensive approach that rescues this nation from the catastrophic consequences of prevailing policies and arrests the problem that has gripped the lives of the guilty and innocent alike.