Policy Recommendation for Bill Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Policy Recommendation for Bill - Term Paper Example As legislative assistant for Representative Jackson, I have put forth my argument ‘against’ the bill. For several years, men have been the target of drug-related acts and a plethora of them have had to face the sentence, for violating rules and for exceeding limitations. However, in the 1980s, the media-generated endemic of ‘crack babies’ has added fuel to the issue of pregnant women taking to drugs, especially cocaine and the eventual health-related problems of the child, leading to poverty and under-growth of the child. The pre-natal growth of the child has led to such a belief and this has bee fuelled by misrepresentation of information by the media and other quarters. It is indeed true that consumption of drugs by pregnant women can be harmful to the fetus, and can led to pre-natal health problems. â€Å"An article in the medical journal Lancet in 1989 found that scientific studies that concluded that exposure to cocaine prenatally had adverse effects on the fetus had a significantly higher chance of being published than more careful research finding no adverse effects.† Studies reveal that it is not only drugs that can lead to causing harm to the fetus, but also alcohol and tobacco. In fact, alcohol can lead to permanent retardation of the fetus and could be far more devastating that drugs like cocaine and marijuana. The fetal tobacco syndrome is one such case, which has led to a high number fo miscarriages and morbidity. The New York Times reported, that â€Å"the problems in many cases were traced not to drug exposure but to some other traumatic event, death in the