RETIRED NARCOTICS OFFICER TELLS PUBLIC HOW TO HOODWINK DRUGS POLICE

What is the best way to hide your stash of marijuana when the police
come knocking? How do you avoid positive tests for drugs? And what
can you do to hoodwink narcotics-trained sniffer dogs?

All these questions and many more will be answered by a DVD called
Never Get Busted Again, about to go on sale on the internet. US law
enforcement officers are furious about the DVD. What has made them
even more furious is the fact that, until recently, the man who made
it was one of the most experienced narcotics officers in the Texas
police force.

If anyone knows the dos and don'ts of getting busted, it is Barry
Cooper. Mr Cooper, who made more than 800 drug arrests in his time
with the Permian Basin drug task force, plans to begin selling the
DVD on Tuesday. It is, he says, directed solely at marijuana dealers,
not at dealers of harder drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine.

He told his local newspaper, the Tyler Morning Telegraph, he was
following his conscience because he believed the war on drugs,
specifically marijuana, was counter-productive. "I know I won't be
accepted by my peers here in East Texas, but in other areas of the
country I will be celebrated," he told the paper.

"When I was raiding houses and destroying families, my conscience was
telling me it was wrong, but my need for power, fame and peer
acceptance overshadowed my good conscience."

So far Mr Cooper is being coy about the details of the tips he gives
out, revealing only in a three-minute promotional video that he goes
into such crucial issues as whether coffee grounds really work as
decoys, how to avoid narcotics profiling and how to "fool canines
every time". Tim Scott, the local police chief, said he was stunned
by what a former top drugs officer was doing. "He's going to tell all
the ones we have been fighting how to get away with it and that makes me mad."

A senior narcotics officer in the region, Mark Waters, was similarly
incensed. "This is a slap in the face to all that we do to uphold the
laws and keep the public safe," he said.

Mr Cooper's former bosses said that they would wait to see the new
DVD before deciding what, if anything, to do about it.