The following story was passed along to me via Skype this morning by one of my fellow VTOR authors.

Barry Cooper, once a Texas drug agent, is turning to video entrepreneur and activist and allegedly making a film that will show how to conceal drugs from police, including dogs.

¹

[Cooper] plans to launch a Web site next week where he will sell his video, “Never Get Busted Again,” … “My main motivation in all of this is to teach Americans their civil liberties and what drives me in this is injustice and unfairness in our system.” [said Cooper]

I’ve always felt the war on drugs was problematic for our legal system. Feel the same about gambling and prostitution (where not legal, of course). Prohibition doesn’t work and isn’t working. Let’s find a way to better educate, legalize and tax all these vices and use the revenue to make the schools better so our future — the children — will be educated to make up their minds with the best uses of their lives. I don’t see much difference in people getting stoned in the privacy of homes versus drinking themselves into a stupor, except in one case I can go to the liquor store and the other would get me arrested.

With that said, I can see why Cooper’s fellow policemen and women are up in arms over him cranking out all their secrets for busting people concealing drugs. The irony here is that by them making a big stink, they are helping to promote Cooper’s website if/when it goes live as well as the sale of this proposed video. Of course there’s always the chance Cooper is just saying he’ll do this video and then never pulls the trigger thus spinning as a PR campaign for being pro-drug.

As population grows, eventually we’re going to have to make a better distinction about who the real criminals are in society. If somebody wants to make him/herself incoherent, is that a threat to society (save for driving stoned or doing something that hurts other people), really? We need to keep the cops out there protecting us against violent criminals, rapists and the like. That’s what the jail space should be used for, not for the stoners.

Feel free, as always, to agree/disagree below.

1. 11/26/08 6:46am PST: yahoo–; dead link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061222/ap_on_fe_st/ex_cop_s_drug_tips [↩]

Did this post make you go hmm?

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