It’s not exactly the same old war on drugs.
As law enforcement officials focus their efforts on violent, big-time drug operations, Chicago police made fewer street-level drug arrests in 2012 than at any point in two decades.
Yet thousands of low-level dealers and users were still swept up, and the busts included nearly 18,000 arrests for misdemeanor marijuana possession despite a new law allowing cops to issue tickets instead.
What’s not news: the vast majority of the arrests—for every type of drug—were made in predominantly African-American communities where drug markets moved in years ago as legal jobs and businesses moved out.