Preckwinkle wants cops to stop making low-level marijuana arrests

Posted 7/27/11 3:18 p.m.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who boldly declared last month that the war on drugs has failed, said she’s talked with Chicago’s new police Supt. Garry McCarthy about halting arrests for low-level drug possession offenses.

“It’s pretty well known within the criminal justice system that the judges will dismiss those charges [involving] very modest amounts of illicit drugs,” she said.

“I suggested to him that although the law is pretty clear that such possession is a violation of the law, that since the judges routinely and almost universally dismiss such low level drug charges that the police might stop arresting people for this since it clogs up our jail and these people their cases will be dismissed out anyway,” Preckwinkle told reporters after Wednesday’s Cook County Board meeting.

Preckwinkle didn’t provide specifics, but her staff later said she was referring to solely marijuana possession cases.

via WLS 890AM.