Unfriendly Fire: Activists Spar Over War On Drugs
JANUARY 18, 2008
MEDFORD, Mass. (TNA) – On the surface, one would expect Barry Cooper and Jack Cole to get along just fine. They certainly have enough in common.
LEAP Jack Cole runs Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an organization calling for the legalization of all drugs.
Both are former narcotics officers – Cooper having spent years as a Texas Highway Patrolman, while Cole worked as an undercover narcotics agent throughout the U.S. And both eventually grew disillusioned with their work, wondering if they weren’t doing more harm than good as soldiers in the War on Drugs.
Now, both men are battling prohibition, each calling for the legalization of all drugs.
However, in spite of their shared traits, Cole and Cooper don’t have many kind words for one another.
Cooper claims that Cole’s group, the educational organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), initially reached out to him, only to abruptly pull back.
Cooper recently produced and released the first in a planned series of DVDs titled, “Never Get Busted Again Vol. 1: Traffic Stops,” in which he reveals some of the tricks of the trade that helped him set records for narcotics arrests during his years with the Texas Highway Patrol.
That is, before he was forced out under a cloud of political pressure.
“It seemed that as long as I was putting minorities and the poor people in jail for drugs, I was the golden boy,” Cooper says. “But when I arrested the mayor’s son with methamphetamine, and a city councilman with a bag of pot and a pistol, it created a lot of problems for me.
“Actually, the DEA began investigating me as a cop during that period,” he adds. “They were investigating me for illegal investigation tactics, because they couldn’t figure out how I was making all these seizures. Of course, their findings were: He’s just good.”
Today, Cooper offers advice to the very people he once helped put behind bars. His lessons run the gamut from how best to hide your stash to how to throw off a drug dog’s nose. (Suggestions include spraying fox urine, as hunters do, on your car tires, and keeping a cat in a carrier in the backseat.)
But instead of the DEA, Cooper’s nemesis is now Cole, as well as all other LEAP board members, whose relationship with Cooper soured once they discovered the “Never Get Busted” DVD. 
LEAP Barry Cooper spent years as a Texas Highway Patrolman and now sells a video called 'Never Get Busted' to help drug users avoid arrest.
“There were some lies told,” Cooper accuses. “They (LEAP) were on-board with me (at first), loved everything that was happening. In fact, when the news broke (on ‘Never Get Busted’) in January ‘07, I was driving to Dallas with my attorney, my bodyguard and my wife to do a Fox interview, the first one, and an MSNBC interview. I got three phone calls from board members of LEAP asking me to plug them, because they wanted the national attention.
“I did as they told me,” he continues, “and then they lied, said that that didn’t take place and that I had no business plugging them.”
Cooper also claims that at one point, LEAP’s Web site had listed him as an official speaker.
Cole founded LEAP in 2003 in his hometown of Medford, Mass., near Boston, where he once posed as a fugitive drug dealer wanted for murder. He says Cooper joined his organization, and soon expressed interest in becoming a speaker.
Cole insists that he, along with his fellow LEAP board members, decided they had no place for Cooper immediately upon learning of his DVD, which Cole believes is bogus and represents little more than a shallow attempt by Cooper to make a profit.
Cooper sees the feud in a different light. “Once again, I overwhelmed another field, and that made some old thinkers weary of me,” he says.
“Barry Cooper is a businessperson,” Cole insists, adding, “Look, nobody at LEAP makes any money off of this.”
He also objects to Cooper’s tactics, pointing out, “Cops have a hard enough job as it is.”
Cooper admits he will use any legal measures to frustrate law enforcement’s efforts to jail citizens for simple marijuana possession, adding, “Their (LEAP’s) stance is that they don’t want to agitate law enforcement in any way.”
Instead, LEAP representatives travel the world giving speeches that advocate an end to drug prohibition. And they aren’t just preaching to the choir.
“We don’t talk, too much, to people who use drugs,” Cole says. “We talk to civic organizations, police organizations, educational organizations, things like rotaries or chambers of congress, very conservative groups.”
LEAP Cole says Cooper's advice to drug dealers just makes it harder for cops.
Cole says the group has made more than 3,500 such presentations. And afterward, he says, some 80 percent of the audience typically adopts LEAP’s stance on narcotics: that the best way to curb abuse, and related deaths, is to legalize all drugs.
“And when we say (legalize) all drugs, we really mean it,” Cole says. “The more dangerous the drug is, the more reason there is to legalize it.”
As evidence, Cole points to lower rates of abuse in countries where drugs are legal, or decriminalized, such as Switzerland, where heroin users are permitted to inject in clinics under the supervision of professionals.
“They’re with social workers, and educators, and job specialists – people who try to help people who use drugs,” Cole says. “And it’s really working: About 22 percent of them have just quit using any kind of drug, and we’re happy to get 3 percent (in America).”
Cole also notes that Switzerland has not seen an overdose-related death since the drug program was instituted 13 years ago. In fact, the country now boasts the lowest rates of AIDS and hepatitis, per capita, among all European nations, as legal clinics provide an ample supply of clean needles
What’s more, crime has been reduced by 60 percent nationwide since the program’s inception, according to Cole. And he isn’t the least bit surprised.
“For the people who feel that they still have to use heroin, it’s free. So they don’t have to prostitute themselves, or break into your house and steal your television, or (do) something worse, to pay for the drugs,” he says.
In addition to spreading their gospel to social organizations both public and private, LEAP speakers have shared such findings with nearly 2,000 state lawmakers over the past three years.
Cole claims even greater success among this audience.
“We couldn’t believe the stats we were getting at first, but [86 percent of state legislators] agree with us,” Cole says. “Only 7 percent want to continue the War on Drugs after they talk to us, and 7 percent are undecided.”
Cole believes these numbers prove his group’s effectiveness. 
Barry Cooper Cooper is getting ready to release a second DVD, 'Never Get Raided,' and is currently running for Congress in Texas as a Libertarian candidate.
“If no matter where we go in the world, about 80 percent of our audience agrees with us, that means that if we can talk to everyone in the United States, and get 80 percent of them to agree with us, and we have 80 percent of the country saying we should end the War on Drugs, the politicians are going to start listening,” Cole asserts.
Nor does Cooper plan to slow his pace anytime soon either. His next DVD, “Never Get Raided,” is completed and set to be released later this month.
He’s also planning to produce a movie called “50/50,” which will focus on investigating, and demonstrating, the differences between alcohol and marijuana use and abuse.
“We’re going to bring 50 people to Hollywood – one person from each state in the United States, a representation of our country – and we’re going to allow them to get drunk until four in the morning,” Cooper says.
“We’ll film them riding go-karts, navigating obstacle courses, (undergoing) frustration tests,” Cooper explains. “Of course, the drunks will be puking, fighting, wrecking. And three days later, after that’s all cleared out of their system, we’ll allow the same 50 people to smoke pot until four in the morning, and we’ll repeat some of these tests and show the differences.”
But that’s not all. Cooper recently launched a run for Congress, filing as a Libertarian candidate in Texas’ District 31, which stretches from Stephenville to Austin. Unsurprisingly, a primary focus of his campaign is criminal justice reform.
As for a possible endorsement from LEAP, he probably shouldn’t hold his breath.
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