Crack Babies: A Tale From the Drug Wars - Retro Report
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0:05 - 0:07There was another warning about cocaine today.
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0:07 - 0:10The fact now, that it has spread through every American city.
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0:10 - 0:18It is a problem in Houston, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Tucson, and Sacramento.
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0:18 - 0:22In the 1980s, the media sounded the alarm
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0:22 - 0:25that a new drug, crack cocaine, was taking over American cities
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0:25 - 0:30and, that it had an especially devastating effect on pregnant women and their newborns.
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0:30 - 0:34A new study says, the babies born to women who use cocaine, during pregnancy,..
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0:34 - 0:38..are three times as likely to be born with birth defects.
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0:38 - 0:41They tend to be, what we call jittery.
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0:41 - 0:44They are very very high risk for Cerebral Palsy...mental retardation.
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0:44 - 0:48They are prone to hypertension, strokes, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
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0:48 - 0:52These children were the most expensive babies ever born in America.
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0:52 - 0:57They are going to overwhelm every social service delivery system that they come into contact with.
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0:57 - 0:59Throughout the rest of their lives.
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0:59 - 1:04Drugs take away the dream from every child's heart, and replaces it with a nightmare.
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1:04 - 1:06But were these infants really doomed?
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1:06 - 1:11Nearly three decades later, what is the true legacy of the crack baby era?
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1:11 - 1:22(music playing)
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1:22 - 1:26In the early 1980s, Dr. Ira Chaznoff, a young researcher.
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1:26 - 1:29At Western Memorial Hospital in Chicago,...
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1:29 - 1:31decided to study what he saw as a worrisome trend.
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1:31 - 1:35Among his pregnant patients, who had used crack cocaine.
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1:35 - 1:39Women were coming in, and their babies were looking different when they were born.
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1:39 - 1:42They had higher rates of per-maturity.
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1:42 - 1:48And, they had higher rates of new born seizures and other complications.
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1:48 - 1:53A lot of the babies exposed to the cocaine are quite small.
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1:53 - 1:56We think, that is related to the use of this drug during pregnancy.
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1:56 - 2:01We'd seen effects of alcohol, and other substances, on children.
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2:01 - 2:05So we were certainly open, to the idea, that this was a problem.
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2:05 - 2:06Cocaine was an epidemic.
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2:06 - 2:14I think that it was a, something that the media, it became an exciting thing to talk about.
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2:14 - 2:21We call our broadcast, "48 Hours on Crack Street".
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2:21 - 2:23Would you call this a standard crack house?
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2:23 - 2:31Soon after our paper was published, within days we were getting calls from media all over the country.
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2:31 - 2:33We started hearing the term "crack babies".
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2:33 - 2:36Spotlight tonight, our investigative series on cocaine kids.
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2:36 - 2:41Despite all the warnings, the growing number, of babies, are being born all over addicted to cocaine.
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2:41 - 2:47As it got out into the world, it became this phenomenon.
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2:47 - 2:50Twenty three babies were born to the cocaine using women in this study.
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2:50 - 2:55Because the problem has appeared so suddenly, there are few reliable statistics.
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2:55 - 3:00The number of so called cocaine babies, is growing at an astonishing rate.
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3:00 - 3:04The number of babies born addicted has risen %500 percent.
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3:04 - 3:06I had lots of people interviewing me.
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3:06 - 3:10Dr. Ira Chaznoff, of Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital,..
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3:10 - 3:13..runs the oldest program researching cocaine and the newborn.
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3:13 - 3:22It appears, that cocaine has just as devastating effect on pregnancy, and the new born, as heroine.
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3:22 - 3:27Chaznoff told reporters, that cocaine exposure was causing some babies to be born with brain damage.
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3:27 - 3:31And that others, were overwhelmed by even simple eye contact with the mother.
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3:31 - 3:35These children are not normal.
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3:35 - 3:39In the sense, that they are going to be able to enter the classic schoolroom...
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3:39 - 3:43...and function in large groups of children.
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3:43 - 3:46Other researchers, and doctors, echo Chaznoff's conclusions.
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3:46 - 3:50And a host of seemingly recognizable symptoms took hold.
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3:50 - 3:53One of the things that we see, about babies that have been exposed to cocaine,...
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3:53 - 3:55..is they tend to be very tremulous and shaky.
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3:55 - 3:59Very fine kinds of tremors.
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3:59 - 4:02We look to see if we would find the effects that were reported.
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4:02 - 4:05And we were saying, "Well...we are not seeing this."
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4:05 - 4:09As Chaznoff's star rose, Dr. Clair Kholes was reaching a different..
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4:09 - 4:12..though equally startling conclusion about crack babies.
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4:12 - 4:16Based on her study, of infant behavior, at Marie University.
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4:16 - 4:20The effects didn't seem consistent, with the action of the drug itself.
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4:20 - 4:26Many of the children, who are the so called classic cocaine babies, were per-mature babies.
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4:26 - 4:30And the symptoms, that were seen on the videos on television,...
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4:30 - 4:34...the tremoring arms and all of that, that was per-maturity.
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4:34 - 4:39You could have taken any pre-mature baby and gotten the same image.
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4:39 - 4:42I think that people got very focused on cocaine is the cause of this.
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4:42 - 4:46Rather than thinking, that substance abuse is the cause of this.
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4:46 - 4:48Maternal lifestyle is the cause of this.
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4:48 - 4:50Social issues are the cause of this.
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4:50 - 4:56Khole's findings, didn't fit within the narrative of what had become a national scare.
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4:56 - 4:59Cocaine.. crack.
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4:59 - 5:02If you use drugs, while you are pregnant, your baby can die.
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5:02 - 5:04There are a whole lot of people.
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5:04 - 5:07Who feel, that if you can just scare people sufficiently,..
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5:07 - 5:12..that is better than telling them the truth about something.
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5:12 - 5:17Because it will prevent them from doing bad things.
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5:19 - 5:21The American agenda tonight poses this question.
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5:21 - 5:22What will you do?
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5:22 - 5:27About pregnant women who use drugs and pass those drugs on to their babies?
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5:27 - 5:28By the late 1980s...
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5:28 - 5:31Chaznoff's findings were being used to justify cases.
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5:31 - 5:37Charging pregnant cocaine users as child abusers, drug dealers, and killers.
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5:37 - 5:39I was at first stunned.
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5:39 - 5:43And then angry, that they would distort the information.
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5:43 - 5:52That's when I started realizing, how a lot of this can be taken out of context, and used to bolster any kind of argument.
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5:52 - 5:54People may have felt that they were doing the right thing.
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5:54 - 5:59But I mean the idea, that one would prosecute a pregnant women,...
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5:59 - 6:05..and use this kind of not very accurate research to do so.
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6:05 - 6:08Is very disturbing.
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6:08 - 6:12As the prosecutions continued, crack babies grew to toddlers.
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6:12 - 6:14No one knows how many there are.
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6:14 - 6:17Or, even how to best identify them.
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6:17 - 6:22But educators suspect, that tens of thousands of crack kids are in kindergartens in inner cities.
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6:22 - 6:25Even in small town America.
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6:25 - 6:29It now threatens to create an entirely new underclass of children.
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6:29 - 6:35Unable to care for themselves. Of infants born to suffer.
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6:35 - 6:39In the United States this year, at least a hundred thousand crack babies will be born.
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6:39 - 6:43Today the government said, it will cost 5 billion dollars a year to care for such babies.
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6:43 - 6:47And, money doesn't begin to tell the whole story.
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6:47 - 6:51I'm supposed to be a victim of that crack era.
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6:51 - 6:56I was supposed to be disruptive..mentally unstable.
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6:56 - 7:00I wasn't supposed to reach the point where I am now.
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7:00 - 7:06The initial hypothesis, was that drug abuse will lead to physical deformities..
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7:06 - 7:09...huge mental deformities in children.
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7:09 - 7:14I didn
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7:14 - 7:16In myself, I didn't see any of those things.
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7:16 - 7:24So, it would be easy for me to believe that, that science doesn't hold true.
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7:24 - 7:30Almost three decades, since Chaznoff's research, which focused on just twenty three babies.
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7:30 - 7:36Long term studies, have only found only suddle changes in the brains of cocaine cocaine expose research subjects.
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7:36 - 7:37Like Stone.
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7:37 - 7:41There is no particular evidence of this social, or emotional, deficit.
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7:41 - 7:45You're not seeing really broad scales of severe developmental problems.
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7:45 - 7:47As was predicted.
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7:47 - 7:51The schools have not been overwhelmed by the flood of cocaine exposed children.
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7:51 - 7:56In fact, Stone became the first in her family to graduate from college.
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7:56 - 8:04In learning that I had been exposed, I kinda told myself that I am not going to make this an issue.
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8:04 - 8:10Whatever I have to do to get around, what the effects may be, i'll do that.
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8:10 - 8:12The paper was a preliminary kind of finding.
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8:12 - 8:17It really should not have been generalized, to the extent that it was.
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8:17 - 8:21Which I believe Dr. Chaznoff, eventually came to himself and said,...
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8:21 - 8:26...that this really didn't represent the whole of the situation.
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8:26 - 8:28Doctor let's go to you on this question.
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8:28 - 8:30You've studied this.
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8:31 - 8:35Perhaps one of the first people to study this.
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8:35 - 8:38How does cocaine use effect newborns?
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8:38 - 8:39Well there is no questions that, cocaine use during pregnancy,...
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8:39 - 8:41...has real effects of the unborn, and the newborn, child.
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8:41 - 8:44But, these effect are not devastating.
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8:44 - 8:49And, can be addressed through treatment for the pregnant woman and for the child.
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8:49 - 8:52Over time, Chaznoff did distance himself.
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8:52 - 8:56From the extreme pronouncements he was quoted making in the early days.
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8:56 - 9:01I probably talked too much, or gave long winded explanations.
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9:01 - 9:03Which were completely cut out.
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9:03 - 9:07It was one of those feelings, where you just feel completely out of control.
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9:07 - 9:12But the hysteria, that followed his initial research, had already taken its toll.
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9:12 - 9:16It wasn't even a natural disaster or war.
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9:16 - 9:19It was a drug that caused so much harm.
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9:19 - 9:22Among my generation and my parents generation.
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9:22 - 9:26Certainly cocaine was contributing to this problem.
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9:26 - 9:31They got very focused on it as the only sole cause of it.
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9:31 - 9:36I think people still believe that cocaine story, but alcohol is much more of a problem than cocaine.
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9:36 - 9:41Because there is much more alcohol abuse, and it has much more serious effects.
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9:41 - 9:46I think if you'd say something three times, out loud, that people take it as fact.
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9:46 - 9:50Also, there are certain ideas that people want to believe.
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9:50 - 9:53That fit in with cultural stereotypes.
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9:53 - 9:55It is hard to get rid of those.
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9:55 - 10:05(music playing)
- Title:
- Crack Babies: A Tale From the Drug Wars - Retro Report
- Description:
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Retro Report: In the 1980s, many government officials, scientists and journalists warned that the country would be plagued by a generation of "crack babies." They were wrong.
Read the story here: http://nyti.ms/166g5dg
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- Project:
- BATCH 2 (1.31.17)
- Duration:
- 10:10
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Kevin Vaillancourt edited English subtitles for Crack Babies: A Tale From the Drug Wars - Retro Report | ||
Kevin Vaillancourt edited English subtitles for Crack Babies: A Tale From the Drug Wars - Retro Report | ||
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