WOOLDRIDGE RIDES ACROSS U.S. TO MAKE STATEMENT

MONTICELLO -- Howard Wooldridge wants to make a statement about
ending prohibition. As he rides across the United States on a horse,
he's doing just that.

Wooldridge, a Texan, is riding across the country to "try and raise
awareness to the catastrophic failure to the war on drugs." He rode
through Jones County early last week. The policy on drugs, he says,
is nothing special and has filled teens world with drugs and drug dealers.

Teens decide to sell drugs because they work for chump change at
McDonalds and make big money as a drug dealer.

He asks, "How is prohibition improving or making Iowa better?

"It's not."

A former law enforcement officer, Wooldridge, a member of the Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), says that the police cannot
protect people from their own stupidity. It hasn't worked in 35 years
and won't work in 2005.

Instead, Wooldridge wishes the government would focus more on those
drinking and driving and child molesters.

Wooldridge spent about three years as a detective, who arrested child
molesters. "Regular people don't want to know what it's like to
interview a 7-year-old girl who has been raped.

"We need to refocus on serious public safety threats."

Last year Wooldridge drove across the country spreading the word in a
Chevy truck. This year, he's doing it by horse. He travels across the
country speaking to different Rotary groups about LEAP's efforts.

He's been riding for four months and two weeks and expects this trip
to arrive in New York City around Oct. 1 (he left from Los Angeles).
He rides about 30 miles a day, six days a week.

When he finishes the ride, he says he'll become a lobbyist in the
United States Congress.