(740 ILCS 57/5)
Sec. 5.
Statement of purpose.
The purpose of this Act is to provide a
civil remedy for damages to persons in a community injured as a result of
illegal drug use. These persons include parents, employers, insurers,
governmental entities, and others who pay for drug treatment or employee
assistance programs, as well as infants injured as a result of exposure to
drugs in utero ("drug babies"). This Act will enable them to recover damages
from those persons in the community who have joined the illegal drug market. A
further purpose of the Act is to shift, to the extent possible, the cost of the
damage caused by the existence of the illegal drug market in a community to
those who illegally profit from that market. The further purpose of the Act is
to establish the prospect of substantial monetary loss as a deterrent to those
who have not yet entered into the illegal drug distribution market. The
further purpose is to establish an incentive for drug users to identify and
seek payment for their own drug treatment from those dealers who have sold
drugs
to the user in the past.
(Source: P.A. 89-293, eff. 1-1-96.)
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