Illicit narcotics sold in rural Illinois, yet locals insist on viewing them as ‘Chi’

I couldn’t help but get a chuckle from reading a downstate newspaper account of how a central Illinois man was found guilty of criminal charges related to his selling of cocaine and heroin to people in and around his hometown.

Of course, the locals want to believe that such substances don’t really exist in their community. Somehow, this has to be some sort of alien presence infecting them. Because there’s no way the locals would ever engage in such actions (either selling narcotics, or using them).

SO NATURALLY, THEY turn to the fallback accusation. Blame Chicago!!!

For as the headline in the Bloomington Pantagraph (of a story originally published by the State Journal-Register of Springfield) told us, “Lincoln man convicted of selling cocaine, heroin he bought in Chicago.”

It seem the man, who is 38, was found guilty last week in Logan County court of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance. Prosecutors claimed during his two-day trial that he made several trips to Chicago (about a three-hour drive up Interstate 55 from his hometown of Lincoln, Ill.), where he bought the drugs.

Then, he’d bring them back to his hometown (about a half-hour’s drive north of Springfield), where he’d sell them from his house. To add to the comical nature of this criminal enterprise, the man lived in a house located two blocks from an elementary school.

WHICH UNLESS YOU believe means that six-year-olds are stopping by his house on their way home from school to satisfy their fixes, could almost be seen as irrelevant.

Although I don’t doubt it feeds into the need of those people who are all too eager to believe that our beloved home city is representative of all that is wrong with and corrupt about our society.

This almost strikes me as being the kind of tidbit that Donald Trump himself would link to in another of his inane, nonsense-style Tweets on Twitter when he feels a need to get back to bashing Chicago.

Of course, Trump would have also felt the need to document that the drugs originated in Mexico, before going to Chicago, before being put into the hands of people who were then providing them to “real” Americans who comprise all that is just and proper about our society.

WHICH IS SUCH a nonsense thought to have – even though I don’t doubt there are situations where that very scenario could have happened.

To me, the sad truth of narcotics use is that there are people in all walks of society who have allowed themselves to become addicted.

Think of it this way, if there wasn’t a need felt by certain types of people, there wouldn’t be a market for those so-called despicable ghetto types from Chicago to be able to sell such product.

Then again, that image I just presented is equally as absurd as the one of so-called real Americans not using such substances to begin with.

THIS KIND OF story presented in such a manner merely feeds off stereotypical images that don’t do anything to truly inform us about the “scourge” that certain illicit substances can have upon us.

As for this particular case, it seems the man in question faces sentencing come February – and could get between six and 30 years for a prison term. With four previous convictions, he is regarded as a “habitual criminal,” which could make a sentence near the high end of the range likely.

Which as far as I’m concerned merely means crime and illicit behavior is capable of occurring just about everywhere.

And for all I know, when this man eventually winds up being sent to prison, his fellow inmates who happen to hail from Chicago will probably view this guy as an example of the kind of riff-raff they’ll be exposed to that will be a part of their punishment!

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