Articles Posted in Drug Crimes

As of the beginning of 2020, it is legal to sell and buy cannabis in Illinois. The state has followed in the path of California and Colorado and made it legal to produce and sell cannabis for medical and recreational consumption in limited quantities. While many people find this exciting, some are taking it a…

Chicago has been cracking down on a number of hard drugs in the past year, including heroin. One particular sting just concluded after a year of investigations. This sting led to the discovery of hundreds of thousands of dollars in heroin sales and the arrest of 22 people. This sting, the result of Operation Monticello’s…

Drugs are a consistent problem in many large cities all over the nation, and recently, the federal government has taken a greater interest in Chicago. Although Chicago cartel affiliates primarily deal in heroin and fentanyl, feds currently have an eye out for an uptick in cocaine trafficking. Why? Because cocaine production has increased dramatically in…

Illinois legalized marijuana for adult personal use in 2019, but for many advocates, it simply doesn’t go far enough. Many are hopeful that in this case, marijuana could be the gateway drug law needed to decriminalize harsh drug penalties throughout the state. Why do they want less harsh drug laws in the state? Because minority…

Should dangerous drugs be treated as a health problem or a criminal matter? That is the question playing out in the halls of Congress right now. U.S. Representative from Illinois, Sean Casten, says that he voted against a bill that would continue a federal ban on the illegal sale of synthetic fentanyl because there’s no…

In 2019, Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker House signed several house bills that legalized the recreational use of marijuana and allowed the state to expunge certain individuals’ marijuana possession arrest and conviction records. For now, we’re going to look at the ones that affected 20 ILCS 2630, the Criminal Identification Act, which concerns the expungement…

Airport security can be stressful enough, but when officers walk by with dogs, everyone seems to tighten up. No one wants a drug-sniffing dog to walk by and start barking. Unfortunately, countless drug-sniffing dogs have made a scene over someone who wasn’t doing anything illegal. Some studies even show that these dogs are more often…

The use of marijuana has been a controversial topic for decades. Many have argued that the use of marijuana is a relatively harmless act and that criminalizing it is a waste of law-enforcement resources. On the other hand, even a small possession charge held severe consequences in most states. That is, until relatively recently. Now,…

Generally, mandatory minimums are associated with federal courts. However, Illinois state courts also impose mandatory minimum sentencing for drug trafficking convictions. Mandatory minimums are controversial, as judges are forced to impose a minimum sentence for a particular set of crimes (in this case drug trafficking), which is typically quite severe. These minimums are imposed regardless…

The fact that prescription drugs can be obtained legally from a pharmacy has given rise to two widely believed myths: One, the drugs are somehow less dangerous than other illicit drugs. The other, law enforcement takes their illicit handling less seriously. The reality is, prescription drug abuse can be deadly, and law enforcement is only…