Member-only story
How the Crack Era Waged War on Drug-Addicted Mothers
Stanley Nelson’s Netflix documentary opened my eyes to how much Black and Hispanic women were preyed on by the American government
If you haven’t seen Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy on Netflix, you’re missing out on the most powerful documentary of this new year. Stanley Nelson’s film does a masterful job of contextualizing the crack era of the ’80s by highlighting both its roots and branches — from the White House to inner-city street corners. Much of the information Nelson doles out isn’t new. It’s widely known that the crack-cocaine epidemic was the brainchild of then-President Ronald Reagan to keep alive some ego-driven loyalty to Nicaraguan drug dealers. I knew it was supported by both Republicans and Democrats. And that Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign was a joke.
Where the documentary exposed my ignorance was the extent to which mothers were targeted within America’s war on narcotics, which essentially was a siege against poor minorities. I know all too well the perils of crack use. I saw it destroy families and futures, erode human beings. Little is sadder than a woman who can’t carry out her maternal role because she’s incarcerated by addiction. At the height of the crack epidemic, America put a hit out on both dealer and user. Neither new mothers nor addicts who were pregnant were spared.
The focal figure in this part of Crack was Shirley Brown, a manager for high-risk obstetrics cases at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. Brown is seen on camera querying a pregnant woman on whether or not she uses drugs. The tragedy was that once these mothers admitted to using narcotics, or tested positive for them, they would be arrested mere hours after giving birth. This after their newborn was taken away.
Why were these new mothers treated like criminals? Why were some hauled off in handcuffs and forced to sit in jail without sanitary napkins? Their crime had less to do with the consumption of drugs and more a draconian definition of “distribution.” According to the government, the moment the baby was conceived, the mother became guilty of child neglect and intravenously giving drugs to a minor. This ignited a firestorm of fetal rights…
