Ex-Narcotics Officer Sells DVDs Teaching Best Ways to Stash Pot

Jun 20, 04:29 AM

Current Headlines: 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 once straight-laced lawman has become a 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 as a traitor. 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 and use it to help post bail.

Richard Sanders, an agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Tyler, brushes off Cooper's DVD as a sham. "He's just out to make money," Sanders said.

Though he won't reveal how much he's made, Cooper said he has sold more than 10,000 copies of "Never Get Busted," primarily over the Internet and at a few smoke shops.

He has been called as a witness to testify about unlawful tactics he says police use to make drug cases. For instance, he testified about how drug-sniffing dogs can be made to "false alert," which gives officers legal grounds to search a car or a home.

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