Drug arrests drop in Chicago but still snare thousands in black neighborhoods

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.

Last week officials sent the latest message that their chief targets are major drug operators—and not the guys on the corner—when the Chicago Crime Commission and DEA named Mexican drug cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán Loera “public enemy number one.” Nicknamed El Chapo, or Shorty, Guzman leads the Sinaloa cartel, which the DEA believes is responsible for 80 percent of the heroin and cocaine in Chicago.

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