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Chicago-area official says drug stance earned Reagan ‘special place in hell’

By Monique Garcia and Hal Dardick, Chicago Tribune –

CHICAGO — Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle on Tuesday said former President Ronald Reagan deserves “a special place in hell” for his role in the war on drugs.

Preckwinkle, a staunch advocate of decriminalizing pot, made the comment about Reagan, who died in 2004, during a conference led by former Republican Gov. Jim Edgar at the University of Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs in Urbana-Champaign.

Preckwinkle was defending the recent move by city officials to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, saying out-of-whack drug laws unfairly lead to more minorities behind bars.

Republican state Rep. Chapin Rose questioned whether such an approach includes drug treatment for those who are ticketed. Preckwinkle said no, arguing that drug treatment should be part of the health care system, not criminal justice. She said Reagan deserves a “special place in hell” for his involvement in “making drug use political.”

“What? You didn’t like that?” Preckwinkle said after members of the audience gasped.

Preckwinkle was speaking at a luncheon called “The Opportunities and Responsibilities of Public Service” on one of several panels taking place as part of the Edgar Fellows program, which aims to foster cooperation among policy makers of different parties and backgrounds.

This summer, the Chicago City Council voted to allow police to write tickets instead of make arrests for small amount of pot possession. The ordinance took effect earlier this month.

Preckwinkle, a former Chicago alderman elected county board president two years ago, has been vocal about her support for stopping low-level marijuana arrests. The Democrat had not been known for framing the issue in such harsh terms, however.

She spoke during the 2010 campaign about favoring the decriminalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana. Once in office, she urged Chicago and suburban police to consider issuing tickets, rather than making arrests, for possession of small amounts of marijuana — a step the city took earlier this year.

Preckwinkle on Monday visited the county’s juvenile detention center, telling a classroom of incarcerated minority youth that the country’s drug laws, and state mandatory sentences, were out of whack.

“There are about 314 million people in the United States — 314 million,” she told a group of 19 African-American and Latino teenagers. “That’s about 5 percent of the world’s population.

“But we have about 25 percent of the people who are in jail or prison in the world — 25 percent. So somewhere along the line in this country, we’ve gotten way off track. And we jail or imprison a considerable portion of our population. We have more people in jail and prison than any other country in the world.”

Republican County Commissioner Timothy Schneider took issue with Preckwinkle’s remarks about Reagan.

“I think it was a really unfortunate choice of words to speak of one of the most revered presidents of the 20th century in that manner,” Schneider said.

“I don’t want to say much more to fuel any more rhetoric, but I think that what she said stands on its own and if she wishes to correct any of it, then she should have the opportunity to do that,” he added. “But when you speak about a man that’s considered by most to be one of the finest presidents of the 20th century that way, I think it’s unfortunate.”

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