Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper opposed a 2012 state ballot initiative to allow the sale and use of marijuana for recreational purposes. He told voters it might "increase the number of children using drugs and would detract from efforts to make Colorado the healthiest state in the nation. It sends the wrong message to kids that drugs are OK." Spurning his advice, voters approved it.

So he might be excused if, four years later, he were tempted to gaze upon the results of this experiment and say, "I told you so." In fact, Hickenlooper has done just the opposite. "It's beginning to look like it might work," he said recently.

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Gov. Charlie Baker yesterday decried the "proliferation" of pot use and called on authorities to prosecute to the "fullest" extent of the law a Webster man accused of being high in a crash that killed a state trooper, sparking a renewed focus on the state's marijuana laws amid a heated debate on legalization.

Police said David Njuguna was driving "impaired" after visiting a medical marijuana dispensary in Brookline and had a half-burnt marijuana cigarette in his car when he slammed into trooper Thomas L. Clardy's SUV in mid-March, killing the veteran officer.

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Proponents of marijuana legislation often purport its safety over legal drugs, particularly alcohol.

"I'd rather someone get behind the wheel stoned than drunk," more than one person has opined.

The notion is cringe-worthy. Impaired is impaired and driving that way is dangerous, potentially deadly, whether it involves alcohol, marijuana or prescription medication.

Unlike alcohol, though, where plenty of scientific data is available to support at what point a person becomes intoxicated, the science is iffy on marijuana.

That's why it's best Illinois not try to draw a line in the sand over marijuana impairment until a correlation can be made.

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House lawmakers sent Gov. Bruce Rauner legislation on Wednesday to decriminalize marijuana across Illinois, meaning people caught with small amounts of marijuana would be fined instead of receiving jail time.

The legislation incorporates changes the Republican governor suggested when he used his amendatory veto powers to rewrite similar legislation last year. Rauner said the old version would have let people carry too much marijuana and set fines too low.

The new edition drops the number of grams allowed from 15 to 10 and raises the range of fines from $55 to $125 to between $100 and $200. Municipalities could add to the fines and implement other penalties, such as a requirement for drug treatment. Citations would be automatically expunged twice a year, on Jan. 1 and July 1.

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For years in Illinois, it was extremely rare for anybody to be charged with murder for a drug-induced death, but times have changed.

Prosecutors across the nation have begun charging people with murder if they shared illegal drugs such as heroin with a friend or family member who died as a result.

Now there's a push to do the same in Illinois but, like the failed war on drugs, it risks making a bad situation worse. The more people are hesitant to call 911 in an overdose situation because they fear arrest, the more people will die.

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Authorities Are Filing More Drug-Induced Homicide Charges, but Complex Cases Show It's Hard to Decide Whether Offenders Deserve Prison or Treatment

When police and paramedics arrived at her aunt's apartment in Carol Stream, Adrianna Diana told them she and her friend Christopher Houdek had cooked and shot up heroin the night before.

Diana, 20, said she awoke covered in vomit, with Houdek, 21, next to her, unresponsive and "cool to the touch." Her aunt called 911.

Paramedics rushed Houdek to a hospital, where he died. The DuPage County coroner ruled his 2013 death an accident by "heroin intoxication." But prosecutors decided it was homicide- and charged Diana and two heroin dealers.

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Illinois has taken a go-slow approach to medical marijuana, limiting risk by allowing the industry to operate as a pilot program until the start of 2018. So far, so good: The highly regulated system, designed to provide relief to patients suffering from 39 specific ailments, such as cancer and Parkinson's, has operated smoothly since it started last year.

Gov. Bruce Rauner, like his predecessor, Pat Quinn, hasn't rushed the process. But a policy of prudence that doesn't evolve with the evidence can wind up being overly cautious: Today some hurting Illinois residents can't get the aid they seek because of Rauner's approach.

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Department Investigates Alleged False Testimony That Could Derail Cases

Chicago police have begun an internal investigation into allegations that as many as six officers lied in their court testimony and are prepared to take at least one of the officers off the street because of a judge's determination he had testified falsely in a narcotics case.

The inquiry, confirmed by a police spokesman, comes in response to a Tribune investigation that documented more than a dozen examples over the past few years in which judges concluded officers gave false or questionable testimony in court.

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Pot ticket option, fewer cops lead to lowest narcotic bust numbers in three decades, but special unit arrests up ' considerably'

The war on drugs may not be over in Chicago, but it's in retreat.

In 2015, total drug-related arrests dropped to the lowest level in three decades, a Chicago Sun- Times analysis of city crime data found.

And the rate of drug busts plunged more sharply in the first four months of 2016. Chicago Police are on pace to make 13,000 narcotics arrests by year's end. That would be the smallest annual tally since 1973, two years after President Richard Nixon declared a national war on drugs.

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3 Men Among 58 Nationwide to Get Commutations

WASHINGTON - Three Illinois men who received long federal prison terms for drug crimes will be freed in late summer after their sentences were commuted by President Barack Obama.

The three cases were among 58 commutations the president granted Thursday.

One of the Illinois men is Artrez Nyroby Seymour of Chicago Heights, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2005 for his role in a narcotics conspiracy.

Seymour's term was cut to 20 years in March, and the commutation means he will be freed after serving almost 11 years. Seymour, 36, is in prison in Terre Haute, Ind., and had been set for release in November 2019, records show.

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Illinois lawmakers have a solid shot of passing a law to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana - and of seeing Gov. Bruce Rauner actually sign that legislation.

Lawmakers last year sent Rauner a bill to make possession of up to 15 grams of pot a ticketable - rather than a criminal - offense, but Rauner vetoed it, saying it would allow people to carry too much pot and that stiffer fines than $55 to $125 were warranted.

A new version of that bill, sponsored by Sen. Heather Steans (D-Chicago), picks up language from Rauner's amendatory veto. It would allow possessors of even less marijuana - 10 grams - to face slightly larger fines of $100 to $200.

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Medical marijuana dispensaries would be permitted in a wider swath of downtown Chicago thanks to a zoning change advanced Tuesday at the behest of the City Council's most powerful alderman.

Ald. Edward Burke ( 14th) persuaded the City Council's Zoning Committee to allow dispensaries in the zoning district known as the "downtown core."

Currently, there are four zoning districts in downtown Chicago: residential; mixed-use; service; and the area known as the downtown core. That last category includes office buildings, residential high- rises, stores, theaters and government buildings.

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Burke Teams Up With Donor on Zoning Proposal

Medical marijuana dispensaries would be allowed in the Loop under a change to Chicago zoning regulations pitched by Ald. Ed Burke and a campaign contributor he once helped nearly double his state pension through a one-month sweetheart deal.

Former-state-lawmaker-turned-lobbyist Robert Molaro told the City Council Zoning Committee on Tuesday about the roadblock that pot dispensaries now face: They're technically allowed in some Loop areas, but the potential sites are within 1,000 feet of a school or day-care facility, and that rules them out under state law.

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The Chicago Sun- Times editorial ["Law needs to rein in government seizures," April 19] supporting the reform of Illinois and federal forfeiture laws regarding drugs and suspected drug proceeds was spot- on correct, and former administrator of the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration Peter Bensinger's contrary opinion was dead wrong. ["Seize cartel assets best way to beat them," letter to the editor, April 22].

As the Chicago Sun- Times editorialized on June 22, 2010, "America's War on Drugs is over - we lost - and it's time to get real about our drug laws."

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SPRINGFIELD (AP) - Medical marijuana in Illinois would be required to carry warning labels about possible side effects under a bill of a Republican lawmaker.

Rep. Dwight Kay, of downstate Edwardsville, said the goal is to treat medical marijuana like other prescription drugs that warn patients about possible adverse effects. His bill, up for a House committee vote Monday, doesn't specify what warnings should be on the products, leaving it to the state health department to decide.

But Kay said he would like to see warnings about how marijuana can cause drowsiness and impaired driving, and that it can affect pregnancies.

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Clinical Trial Shows Reduced Seizures in Children, Possibly Increasing Chances of FDA Approval

A marijuana extract significantly reduced seizures in severely epileptic children, according to a landmark study conducted in part at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.

Supporters said the results greatly improve the chances for the drug, called Epidiolex, to win eventual approval by federal regulators for prescription use to treat Dravet syndrome, a debilitating type of epilepsy that strikes in early childhood. The drug would be the first derived from the marijuana plant to win such approval.

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But Opposition Fierce From Foes Including Law Enforcement Officials

SPRINGFIELD - Another attempt to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana statewide is again in front of Illinois lawmakers, but as before, the proposal faces strong opposition from law enforcement and anti-pot advocates.

The omnibus bill in the Senate also sets a standard for what's considered too high to drive and automatically purges municipal citation records for possession annually, unless local governments decide against it. Opponents of the legislation dislike both of those provisions, too, saying there should be zero tolerance and that expunging records will make it difficult to determine when someone needs drug treatment.

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There is no problem so bad that government-imposed remedies cannot make it worse, spawn new problems or both. A new confirmation of that phenomenon may be on the way, thanks to new recommendations from an agency intent on curbing the use of opiates.

On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidelines for medical professionals to discourage them from prescribing these medicines to relieve pain. The agency has grounds for concern: Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death in the United States, with prescription and nonprescription opiates accounting for the biggest share of those fatalities.

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Tim Ryan, a Former Heroin Addict Who Lost His Son to the Drug, Aims to Bring Users into Rehab and Recovery, but Some Question His Methods

Two years after emerging from prison on drug-related charges, Tim Ryan has become a beacon for families scarred by Chicago's heroin crisis.

The brash and salty former corporate headhunter has launched a public crusade to take addicts "from dope to hope" by running recovery groups, performing interventions and handing out advice via Facebook. He claims he ushers hundreds of people a month into rehab, and that he does it with remarkable speed.

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Study Drives Home Need for Substance Counseling Services

More than 90 percent of males and nearly 80 percent of females who went through Cook County's juvenile detention center were diagnosed with drug or alcohol abuse and dependency at some point in their lives from childhood through their 20s and 30s, according to newly released findings from a Northwestern Medicine study.

The study, published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health, looked at 1,829 youths detained at Cook County's Juvenile Temporary Detention Center between 1995 and 1998 and followed up with them at least nine times over 12 years. According to the findings, by the time the group members reached their late 20s and, for the older participants, their early 30s, more than 9 in 10 males and more than 3 in 4 females were diagnosed with a "substance use disorder," meaning they abused and were dependent on substances ranging from alcohol and marijuana to cocaine and opiates.

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