here is "america tonight" sarah hoye. >> any time you think you want to legalize drug, go to a neonatalnit if you can get in. again and again and again the mother disappears in three days and the child becomes a ward of the state because he is permanentally damaged. >> reporter: the war on drugs was still in full swing and the baby thought to be doomed from birth was the poster child. >> like mr. perreault, i have held crack babies in my arms. >> it is a crack epidemic . >> this has reached epidemic proportions. >> reporter: and just like an infectious disease crack's spread was rapid and vicious. in philadelphia pe, the tiny yellowish rock shook this city to its foundation. >> they would stop their car and start shooting. >> reporter: activist and resident of the neighborhood remembers those dark days like they were yesterday. talk to me about what this time. >> it was a lot of violence, a lot of shootings, a lot of keem being killed, a lot of people fighting over territory. sometimes there would be like eight nine gangs in one little community like this. >> reporter: crack addicts str