Former Drug Cop: "I cried for a year once I found out what I'd been involved in"

[99th_Monkey]

A former Texas narcotics officer recently sat down with HuffPost Live to explain why he turned against the drug war.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/14/former-narcotics-officer-we-terrorized-families-over-a-bag-of-pot/

“A couple of times I raided a home and there were two kids in the home, scared, we terrorized the family, and it’s for a bag of pot,” Barry Cooper said Tuesday. “Searching the house, I noticed the kids had straight ‘A’ report cards, the parent’s checkbook was balanced, and I realized that something was amiss, something was really bad.”

“I put it together years later, after I started smoking pot,” he confessed. “You know, a lot of people report that the use of that medication helps a person self-reflect. And, wow, the veil came off and then I started doing the real research for myself instead of believing the propaganda. And I cried for a year after I found out the truth and what I had been involved in.”

After abandoning his law enforcement career, Cooper produced the documentary Never Get Busted, which explained how to hide marijuana from police. The release of the film led to a highly accusatory Fox News interview, which has since been prominently featured on Never Get Busted‘s website.

[reflection]

1. Barry Cooper is an interesting person.

I've seen many of his videos. I think his heart is in the right place but it's really odd for a guy to go completely 180 the way he did. I guess it was a legitimate epiphany.

Here's a clip of Cooper standing his ground against the Fox fools if anyone wants to watch:

[yesphan]

2. Wow !

Those commentators are real assholes.

[yesphan]

5. Also,

what he said about testimony that mj made white women want to have relations with black men is true.

See: Harry J. Anslinger.

http://www.csdp.org/publicservice/anslinger.htm

The talking heads were doing nothing more than projecting the same bullshit propoganda and straw man arguments
that have been used on the public for the last 80 years.

Good on this guy. More like him.

[KansDem]

6. FOX News bubbleheads needn't be so self-righteous about exploiting for money

It's their raison d'etre

FOX = Full Of Xhit

[99th_Monkey]

8. I loved how FOX had to trot-out it's own "Psychologist" to ridicule Cooper - lol

Hell there must have been at leat 6-7 "experts" all attacking this one guy
at once, and he so totally stood his ground, awesome.

[RedCappedBandit]

12. Laughed hard at that psychologist.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

13. this guy handled himself quite well in the face of blistering insults

love it. he looks rational, and they all look like roid raging drug addicts.

[ohheckyeah]

17. I love how the final comment by the male

commentator is "everyone knows that." The fact is, most people don't know shit except for the propaganda they hear on television.

[burnodo]

21. Honestly, this interview reminds me of the one with Reza Aslan

but, at least, there were only two people in that crapfest

[Bolo Boffin]

31. Wow. You've got to be careful of those hard right turns to NAMBLA.

Where's the Dramatic Chipmunk when you need him?

[Marr]

32. Oh, brother-- I love how the "psychologist" went directly to a political argument.

Fox News is such a joke.

[Volaris]

33. haHAHAHAHAHAHAaaaaaaaa...that poor woman with the dark hair..

is proof positive that the closer the knife is, the louder the pigs will scream.
The War on Drugs (thanks, St. Ronnie) is on it's way to Dead. The people who have made a killing off of it (personally, Professionally, economically) know it and are trying their damdest to prolong their gain for as long as possible, by whatever argument they can come up with.

MJ=Child Molestation...what a bitch (and that's an adjective I don't use all that much).

[Rex]

3. I wonder how many LEO smoke pot?

Like any other profession, there has to be a number. I would assume it would be low, but you would assume that about the military too.

[Wounded Bear]

4. It has long been thought that....

Cops have all the best weed.

They get it for free, too.

[Rex]

7. There is a correlation between donuts and weed

and the munchies. Maybe we should start polling Duncan Donuts.

[In_The_Wind]

10. I've heard that many times.

[img][/img]

[JoeyT]

16. 1 in 3 sounds low to me too.

More like 1 in 3 admit to smoking marijuana, and another 1 in 3 lie about it.

[Initech]

9. I saw a group outside a store soliciting for DARE a couple of weeks ago.

They asked me for money, I told them "I don't support the war on drugs", and moved on and they were giving me a weird look. I should book this on my phone for next time.

[99th_Monkey]

11. +10 eom

[Spitfire of ATJ]

20. Most of the people with those bumper stickers are dealers.

[arcane1]

15. "Never Get Busted Again" is a great video, too!

[zeemike]

18. "the use of that medication helps a person self-reflect"

And that's what makes it the most dangerous drug to those that love the status quo, and the rule of authoritarianism.

Self reflection is thinking, and they don't like that.

[99th_Monkey]

24. +100 DING! DING! We have a winner!

very astute observation, seriously.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

19. There are some people who would claim the one time he smoked pot it ruined his brain....

They kinda go like this at you though....



....which kinda destroys their credibility....

[beevul]

22. America needs more Barry Coopers. N/T

[sulphurdunn]

23. The inflexible group think

of rightwingers is scary. Had FOX been around in 1960 these same stunted propagandists would have ridiculed anyone who said masturbation didn't cause blindness.

[mick063]

25. Fox is destroying our nation

A simple but profound truth.

Fox enables the message which enables the listener to enable the vote which enables ALEC to enable the destruction of collective bargaining which enables the diminishing middle class which enables the inevitable economic destruction of our nation.

[Peace Patriot]

27. You left out the key enabler...

Fox enables the message which enables the listener to enable the vote which enables ALEC to enable the destruction of collective bargaining which enables the diminishing middle class which enables the inevitable economic destruction of our nation.

....which enables ES&S (a corporation with far rightwing ties which bought out Diebold and now has a 75% monopoly over U.S. vote 'counting' systems, all run on 'TRADE SECRET' code with zero or inadequate audits) to convince people that they voted for this shit.

The final disablement of democracy. Unanswerable. Invisible. Undetectable. Fait accompli. And easy--oh so easy! 'TRADE SECRET' voting 'counting'!

Somebody is playing us like a piano.

[SammyWinstonJack]

26. rec.

[Peace Patriot]

28. Barry Cooper is quite wonderful in this so-called interview...

...but I think we need to pay attention, also, not just to the content of Fox's idiot bobble-head front people and their chattering 'experts' but also to the FORMAT of incoherent, alleged 'debate.'

Imagine how Edward R. Murrow would have handled this guest, or Walter Cronkite, or any of the old time serious people we had on news shows, or, more lately, people like Rachel Maddow, or Thom Hartmann, or Paul Jay of Real News, or even Ophra Winfrey. One interviewer. One guest. Serious, thoughtful questions, to lay the matter before the public for serious discussion and policy-making. The interviewer might play 'devil's advocate' and take the other side (say, drug Prohibition) but not rancorously, rather to investigate the issue and let the guest have his say, so that the PUBLIC and its elected representatives can decide whether or not what he has to say is reliable, thought-provoking and useful.

Fox's very FORMAT prohibits thought. Cooper mentions this, at one point ("if you would let me speak&quot . The main bobblehead keeps interrupting him, cutting off his sentences, contradicting him before he has a chance to present a coherent argument. And then that chorus of screeching interrupters, all talking over each other and over their 'guest', chimes in, and all thoughtful debate is foreclosed--except for Cooper himself, who mounts a truly admirable struggle for rational discussion.

The presence of so many women in this screeching chorus is also disturbing, and I can't help but think it is a deliberate debasement of women. You might say that the women are willing collaborators in destroying thoughtful discussion, and they are, surely, but Fox grooms these individuals to become screechers and entices them into these disgraceful mockeries of 'journalism' with the baubles of career, money, power, fame and topnotch hairdressers, clothiers, make-up artists and coaches, and pits them against each other (and their male counterparts) in vicious competition.

There are male corollaries to the pert female screecher, pom-pom girl and "alpha girl" news person, requiring different debasements (use of schoolyard bully types, for instance; O'Reilly, et al--narrowly focused, thuggish minds) but I think it is a similar process of grooming and enticement. The female 'program' stands out in this instance, cuz most of those attacking Cooper in this show are women, and gang up on him (or try to) in a sort of harpie attack.

I felt...shamed by them, some pity, some contempt, but mostly shame for my sex--for those of my sex who have squandered their newfound opportunities--earned by the relentless struggle of earlier generations of courageous women--on trashing journalism, trashing thought itself and no doubt preening themselves as "self-made women."

What a spectacle they present of brainwashed egotism!

[99th_Monkey]

29. Great observations

Yes, in some ways, that discordant gaggle of insinuating FOX screechers was more fascinating and
revealing than what Mr. Cooper had to say ... and how many were women was striking also.

Thanks for taking the time to point all that out so clearly.

[Peace Patriot]

30. My comment above (re Fox trashing of thought itself) may be relevant to...

...what is going on behind the scenes among our transglobal corporate/war profiteer rulers regarding the legalization of drugs and the Big Pharma/Big Ag/Big Chem interests 'waiting in the wings' to take over and monopolize the trillion+ dollar illicit drug trade.

I was alerted to this matter about a year ago when the rightwing president of Colombia, Manual Santos, came out publicly for the total legalization of drugs, along with the rightwing president of Guatemala, and a commission of rightwing/centrist Mexican leaders.

How odd, I thought, that the very politicians and police/military forces that have benefited from the BILLIONS of U.S. taxpayer dollars in aid for the U.S. "war on drugs" would be the ones to call for the end of it. Had Obama told them that the "cupboard is bare" and they need to figure out some other way for rich to make lots more money?

But, given what the U.S. "war on drugs" was mostly used for--murdering labor union leaders and other advocates of the poor, and brutally displacing FIVE MILLION peasant farmers from their farm lands in Colombia; also, in my opinion, the consolidation of the huge underground drug trade into fewer hands (elimination of the small players and rivals, and better funneling of its trillion+ profits to U.S. banksters, the CIA and other beneficiaries)--what I began to see was a long term corporate plan, with Stage 1: prep for U.S. "free trade for the rich" (the brutal phase), and Stage 2: "free trade for the rich" in all markets including a new market, with legalization, in medicinal, recreational and/or addictive drugs (legalized mass production of these drugs, using pesticides, genetic modification, the slave labor produced by massive dislocation and union busting, etc.).

If I am right, the increasing votes for legalization in U.S. states are both genuine and permitted (via 'TRADE SECRET' vote 'counting' by monopolist ES&S, a corporation with far rightwing ties). I think the reason that Barry Cooper was permitted on Faux News at all, the reason that U.S. voters have been permitted to vote for legalization and the reason that legalization seems to be '"in the air" now, when the idea was completely black-holed in the corporate 'news' in the previous decade and for 40 years in total, may be that the corporate/1%-er interests--for which Faux News are the chief 'news' clowns--are ready for Stage 2. (They have their patents, their production/marketing plans, their accumulated fertile Amazonian farm lands, their slave labor force--all of it in place.)

Colombia is a U.S. client state. It made no sense to me that its U.S.-vetted president would come out with such a bold, shocking, 'liberal' initiative as drug legalization without an OK from Washington DC.

One of the things left to explain are the FBI raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in western U.S. states--business operations that are legal in their states. It seems very provocative. But I think it's similar to clearing the peasants off the land in Colombia--eliminating the small players, prior to the big players stepping in.

Another factor--and I have no answer for this one--is the huge police/prison/military complex that is so entrenched and that has ripped off the public for trillions of dollars, over four decades, for the phony, corrupt, murderous, failed "war on drugs." How to mollify this fascist establishment? We see it being pressured already, with super-hypocrite Eric Holder (lawyer to Chiquita during their rightwing death squad phase in Colombia) now calling for lighter sentencing for drug 'offenders.' The MIC, having stolen most of our money and wrecked our economy with yet more unwinnable wars, surely has created a cash-flow problem, for keeping all those non-violent 'offenders' in our hellish prisons for long, punitive terms. But the problem is much bigger than this, and involves not just prisoners but also the millions of people employed by the system that put them there, not to mention the pointless brutality, that Cooper alludes to, of their methods of doing so (S.W.A.T. teams for invading a home, for a bag of marijuana). Massive layoffs in the police state is like massive layoffs in the military. It would send the economy into deep depression--one we might never recover from. We have gone that far off the cliff into fascism--so many of our people employed in fascist positions, enforcing fascist laws--that we can't afford (or think we can't afford) to change the policy.

This may be what is preventing Obama from moving quickly into legalization and the realization of Big Pharma/Big Ag/Big Chem's big plan to legalize and monopolize the drug trade.

There may also be controversy, and even an internal war, among of our corporate rulers, between those who are benefitting from the lucrative profits of illegalized weeds and processed substances and the war machine that puts up this high-cost farce of brutal opposition to it, on the one hand, and those who have planned for, and see the profit potential, of legalization, on the other.

I don't think "good government" comes into this at all, or only extremely peripherally (by a few, very few honest people in government or business). I think it is overwhelmingly a matter of contending forces within the uber-rich/corporate establishment. Sad to say. But the outcome will certainly affect millions of lives--indeed, all of our lives (the fascist anti-drug state is so pervasive), so we should try to understand it.

Why did Faux News allow Barry Cooper to speak at all? Was it simply to shout him down? Or was it to "run a flag up the flagpole" for the corporate "plan"? Do Faux News owners/execs have fingers in the pie (Big Pharma/Big Ag/Big Chem)?

Above all, though, Faux News DOES NOT WANT US TO THINK ABOUT IT. Our betters will make these decisions and fight their duels amongst themselves. We have nothing to say about the "war on drugs" or legalization--or, rather, we have much to say, but these powers--the powers that Faux News shills for--care not a whit what we think. We will be TOLD what to think. Our votes will be manipulated to their purposes. Cooper, I think, is totally sincere. But the management decision to put him on TV may not be--in fact is quite surely not.

What they want us to do is engage in a thoughtless shouting match, until the goals of the uber-rich are decided.