BIG SANDY, Texas – Barry Cooper sells a DVD on how to stash pot in your car without getting caught. This fall he will release a second one on how to keep police from raiding your home for marijuana.
Now for the kicker: Cooper is a former narcotics officer once considered among the top cops in Texas, where more marijuana is seized each year than in any other state.
The formerly straight-laced lawman has become a shaggy-haired militant for the legalization of weed.
Six months ago he released “Never Get Busted Again,” in which the former star of West Texas’ Permian Basin Drug Task Force gives tips on hiding marijuana (dashboards are rife with nooks and crannies) and throwing off drug-sniffing dogs (coat your tires in fox urine).
“I’m not helping them to break the law. It’s clear the law is already being broken,” said Cooper, 38, who left law enforcement a decade ago. “I will do anything legal to frustrate law enforcement’s efforts to place American citizens in jail for nonviolent drug offenses.”
Law officers regard Cooper, who left law enforcement in 1998, as a traitor. And some pro-pot activists say Cooper’s antics actually undermine their cause.
“This is like waving red meat” in front of police, said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. “They take great professional umbrage with this. They are not our opposition, and we don’t want to agitate them.”
Federal drug agents said his tips won’t keep them from finding your stash, and they advise drug users to save their $20 cost for the DVD and use it to help post bail.
Cooper has begun filming a second DVD, called “Never Get Raided.” He said he is also planning a documentary in which he plans to ply 50 partygoers with beer and marijuana and film what happens next. The aim, he said, is to prove that partygoers who get high are less dangerous than those who get drunk.
Associated Press
Barry Cooper helps marijuana growers learn how to beat the law.
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