The IL House voted to move the use of heroin, cocaine, meth, and fentanyl from a FELONY to a class A misdemeanor. After a year of releasing prisoners into our communities and passing laws to make the job of law enforcement much more difficult, the IL House continues to make our neighborhoods more dangerous.

Illinois HB3447 hasn’t made the news much. It passed the house and is now going to the senate. It deals with a lot of changes to the drug possession and delivery statutes with simple possession amounts being changed from a class 4 felony to a class A misdemeanor. It also changes the drug delivery statutes and allows for “retroactive sentencing.”

Link to bill:

https://lnkd.in/epAcx8d

Currently, possession of 15 grams or less of heroin or cocaine can result in a felony conviction that typically can’t be expunged from criminal records.

Foxx was asked whether she would advocate expunging convictions for possession of those harder drugs, Foxx answered “yes” — as long as it’s part of a larger, progressive approach to handling addiction.

On Thursday, the Foxx doubled down on that commitment.

“Substance use disorder is an addiction. It’s a public health crisis. There’s not been a leader in the public health space who has said otherwise. And yet, we used the criminal justice system to criminalize people who have addition issues,” Foxx said.

“These are conversations that are ongoing that we’re having with state legislature members, the governor’s office and otherwise to see what does it mean to meaningfully and adequately resource treatment as opposed to incarceration. It is a bold vision and one that we hope to have in place in the near-term.”