CBS 7 - Never Get Busted News Coverage - Story Part 1
Mike Barker
CBS 7 news - http://www.cbs7.com
February 21, 2007

A renegade former narcotics officer who once lived in Odessa is making big waves with a video on how to keep from being busted for dope. Barry Cooper wants to legalize marijuana and keep people from going to jail for smoking it.

It's all in an outrageous DVD he's produced called “Never Get Busted Again.” It’s advice on how not to get stopped while carrying dope. Where to hide your marijuana. How to confuse drug dogs.

Narcotics officer Barry Cooper once busted hundreds of pot smokers and confiscated millions in dope and money. He was the star of the Permian Basin drug task force in the 80's. Then it was disbanded.

Then Cooper came here to the East Texas town of Gladewater after leaving the Permian Basin drug task force. Once again he was making lots of narcotics arrests, but cooper says when he busted the mayor's son for met amphetamine and a councilman for marijuana, it was time to leave.

Then the idea for "Never Get Busted Again" began to emerge. Cooper says his ideas about marijuana and search and seizure laws began to change.

But Cooper's old buddies with the Permian Basin Drug Task Force weren't exactly thrilled with his change of heart or his video.

Richard Dixon trains drug dogs and the investigator for the Yoakum County District Attorney. He says he's not worried about Cooper’s advice to drug users. He explains, “...pretty much if you can dream it up the drug smugglers have tried it and we've beat it."

But, Cooper says his video is about more than just fooling drug dogs. He has a message bigger than that, “This is 2007, the evidence is there, it's impossible to overdose on marijuana."

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