California / IN BRIEF : OAKLAND : More Black Families Adopting Babies

The number of black families adopting children has risen sharply statewide, a trend social workers trace to community efforts to ease the plight of a growing number of babies born addicted to crack cocaine. Black adoptions in California rose 39%, to 627, between 1989 and 1991, according to state Department of Social Services statistics. During the same period, Anglo adoptions statewide increased 7%, to 1,318, and Latino adoptions were up 4.5%, to 583. The increase in adoptions coincided with a dramatic rise in the number of drug-exposed babies born in the late 1980s.