4 seated, unhappy-looking young people look at woman in jacket and glasses holding a clipboard who faces them. Man on far left in dark hoodie, jeans gestures to her.

Police in Illinois Are Helping Substance Abusers Get Into Rehab Instead of Arresting Them

Ronald Reagan didn’t start the war on drugs but he did his best to finish it. Law enforcement budgets soared, the jails were packed and the war was carried as far afield as Latin America and Afghanistan.

So it might count as one of history’s minor ironies that here in Dixon, just a few blocks from Reagan’s boyhood home, the local police have called a ceasefire in the war on drugs.