FREEPORT - While the Cook County state's attorney announced Monday that her office won't prosecute most misdemeanor marijuana cases, there's no such policy shift on the horizon for local prosecutors.

State's attorneys in Winnebago, Boone and Stephenson counties said they will continue to offer programs already in place for low-level pot offenders.

Anita Alvarez said in Chicago that she also will steer many facing felony drug charges into treatment rather than locking them up. The policy shift will save the county, that includes Chicago, the money it costs to keep offenders in jail, she said. Those facing low-level drug charges will be routed to treatment programs almost immediately after they are arrested, she said. And she added that by reducing the number of days people spend in jail, those arrested may be able to keep their jobs and homes that they could otherwise lose if they're locked up.

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I entered Whiskey's Roadhouse Bar & Grill in Rockford on April 20 expecting at least a little revelry.

After all, it was 4/20, the day every year on which stoners and casual users alike toke up in what amounts to a salute to marijuana, the plant that makes them happy and relaxed and eases certain pains.

And the 16 25- to 65-year-old men and women who had come together were at the bar specifically to talk about cannabis. Guest speaker was Ali Nagib, assistant director of Illinois NORML, a group pushing to legalize marijuana.

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