12:57 PM: Anonymous neighbor calling. 5 to 6 drug dealers at 1636 West Howard. All wearing black hoodies. They're stashing the drugs in their mouths. Can any of the long time locals tell the new readers how long drug dealing has been going on along this strip of Howard?
3:13 PM: For 10 minutes police have been playing cat-and-mouse with the Sullivan Gang Training Center students as they head north from Pratt and Ashland. Finally police call for back-up as a major melee breaks out at Lunt and Ashland. A cage car has been called to the scene.
4:10 PM: There's been a gang disturbance at 1406 West Morse Avenue. Nothing further at this time.
21 comments:
No shit?
You ask "how long" has the open air drug dealing been going on 24/7 along Howard Street... & Paulina & Marshfield & Bosworth & Greenview & Rogers and, and , and , and ...25+ years!!
Oh my gosh! These crazy kids!
crack, smack and pcp... great kids!
Wow drug dealers on Howard. If you can not find it at Howard just go to the "Rainbow Bridge" a/k/a Morse ave el and find what you are looking for
So....when will CPD finally start using the riot sized pepper spray on these little smegma secreting maggots? Blast them with that and see if they want to do this again.
Hey, you've got to give them credit. They must have really good business skills. It's the only business on Howard that seems to be thriving. Like mcl says, 25+ years. I don't know of any other business on Howard that has stayed open that long. Think about it...
We did that and now we are being sued.
There has to be" a buyer. How long can a "business remain open without customers? Who are these customers? That's right. More than likely your neighbor. Or child. Maybe even your wife or husband. And don't tell me it's "outsiders" coming into "our" neighborhood buying drugs. I've worked too may reverse stings to know that it's usually the very people I mentioned. Just sayin.
===More than likely your neighbor.===
Over the years I've seen the residents who live at both 6928 North Wayne and 1528 West Morse buy from the Morse Avenue open air drug market salesmen.
Both those buildings are owned by Joe Moore's pal, Jay Johnson.
Sorry 'big daddy'!
You're wrong about the buyers. An acquaintance, who is a drug abuse counselor downtown at Northwestern U Hospital, once related to me that he is often told by his patient/clients that it's known throughout the metro area, if you want to buy drugs you go to Rogers Park, i.e., Howard Street, Morse Avenue, etc. It's 'less threatening' than other street market areas and any and everything is available. That's not to say that we don't have local buyers, but the majority are outsiders coming in.
P.S.
IMHO illicit drugs should be legalized for adult use and made available/sold through licensed outlets like booze. Take it off the streets and out of the control of the 'bad guys'.
Sorry MCL, but your friend is wrong. I don't base my statement on what some hype tells me, I base it on what I see. In most cases in which I have worked reverse stings, the vast majority of buyers are from the hood. Of course the hood never wants to admit this for whatever reason. I guess they feel that if the buyers are not from the hood it is less of a poor reflection on the hood. And that is in various neighborhoods throughout the city.
I would agree with you about legalization but don't we have enough of a problem with legal drugs such as alcohol or tobacco? How would legalizing what's now illegal make us better?
It's not just 'my friend's hype' but also based on my personal observation, over the years, that most of the buyers drive in from outside of our neighborhood to purchase their drugs from the street dealers.
big daddy, by legalizing this stuff,we would at least be ceasing to enrich criminal cartels.
Read the history of Prohibition!! People did not cease to drink. All we accomplished was to empower and enrich a vicious criminal organization, corrupt our local governments and police depts, and destroy the morals of our youth, as rich criminals with all their limousines and other "bling" became role models for all the boys in Midwestern cities.
And that's all we're accomplishing now.
We'd be removing a major source of criminal income by legalizing what people have a right to do anyway- which is putting whatever substance in their own bodies they please.
Some people will destroy themselves no matter what. What we want to do is keep them from taking the rest of us down with them.
Driving under the influence, whether legal alcohol or illegal smack is still a crime. Enriching, enraging, and creating artificially high prices for dealers due to lower supply or higher security costs creates crime. It also encourages violence and theft among those who can no longer afford to pay high user fees.
The U.S. can easily de-glamourize drug addiction. As a result tax dollars could be used to encourage police to pick up the pieces and put addicts in detox and rehab. Such tacticals would be a better alternative to throwing them in jail for possession or questionable marketing prowess.
I thought DevCo owns 1528 W Morse. The city gave them money to buy/rehab it, after the previous slumlord dropped the keys off at the station and ran.
DevCorp doesn't any interest in 1528 Morse. The Rogers Park Community Council occupies a portion of the ground floor for their offices. They may have an equity interest in the building, which I believe, was acquired and rehabbed by Jay Johnson, with special financing of some sort.
=== They must have really good business skills===
Or dumb buyers. Shall I say 'brain dead buyers'.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but according to what I've read the very farthest North Side of Chicago, just over the Evanston border, has been a "vice" zone ever since the Prohibition era at least. North Shore folks would frequent the Rogers Park speakeasys, then go home to their "dry" suburbs. Even after Repeal this was true; the N.S. towns mostly stayed "dry" so now Northwestern students and others would frequent "legal" bars along Howard and other commercial strips.
Eventually the illegal-booze trade morphed into the illegal-drug trade, so the kids from Loyola and Northwestern knew where on Howard,etc., were the places to "score." You know the rest.
Thoughts and facts regarding illicit drug legalization, with a focus on Cannabis/Marijuana:
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Law Judge Francis L. Young wrote on September 8, 1988: "Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."
After years of suppression by the government, the truth about medical marijuana is finally coming out. Dr. Tod Mikuriya, former director of marijuana research for the entire federal government, wrote in 1996: "I was hired by the government to provide scientific evidence that marijuana was harmful. As I studied the subject, I began to realize that marijuana was once widely used as a safe and effective medicine. But the government had a different agenda, and I had to resign."
Tobacco kills about 430,700 each year. Alcohol and alcohol-related diseases and injuries kill about 110,000 per year. Secondhand tobacco smoke kills about 50,000 every year. Aspirin and other anti-inflammatory drugs kill 7,600 each year. Cocaine kills about 500 yearly alone, and another 2,500 in combination with another drug. Heroin kills about 400 yearly alone, and another 2,500 in combination with another drug. Adverse reactions to prescription drugs total 32,000 per year, while marijuana kills no one.
A November 4, 2002 Time/CNN Poll found that eighty percent of those polled felt marijuana should be legal only for therapeutic purposes. 72 percent felt recreational users should get fines rather than jail time, which is essentially decriminalization. The complete legalization of marijuana was favored only by 34 percent of respondents, but this figure is twice as large as it was in 1986. Marijuana is safer than alcohol and tobacco, and our drug laws should reflect this reality.
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