Loretta Nall's Review of 'Never Get Busted'

Readers and Friends,

A few months ago the cable news networks were all abuzz with the news that a former narcotics officer named Barry Cooper was on the verge of releasing a new DVD that would show people who smoke pot how to "Never Get Busted Again". Needless to say many of us in the drug policy reform community were thrilled at the prospect of such valuable information being made available to us. But then some alarming discrepancies began to surface.

I gave Mr. Cooper the chance to address those discrepancies via a blog interview and he agreed to do the interview but never did it. He also threatened me at one point by stating that if I didn't stop spreading 'false information' about him he would ruin me by telling all of the people who listen to his advice (which he claimed were many) that I am not credible.

It just so happens that I have more credibility with the drug policy reform community and pot smokers in general in my little finger than Barry Cooper can ever hope to have in his entire lifetime....so his threat lacked any teeth. I also was not spreading false information but disseminating information directly from the sources like LEAP's news release. His threat did let me know that he still likes to use force and intimidation to get his way. Once a cop always a cop I guess.

Despite all of that, I still maintained hope that this video would be useful to the pot smokers of America and kept an open mind for the review. I was fully prepared to give this video much praise if I found it worthy. I didn't find it worthy of any praise at all. As a leader in the drug policy reform community it is my duty to provide accurate information to the people who look to me for advice in these matters and to tell the truth about what I have seen and now know about this video. I hope the following does just that.

Loretta Nall's Review of Barry Cooper's "Never Get Busted"

The first thing that raised a serious red flag for me was the fact that NEVERGETBUSTED.com is printed on the outside of the envelope. I find that very odd, if this DVD is in fact, suppossed to prevent people from getting busted. Think about who is ordering this item for a moment. Who is the market? Why, people who don't want to get busted of course! They would also probably not like anyone to know they are ordering items which claim to help prevent getting busted, as that is a pretty big indicator that they have something to get busted for. I mean for crying out loud this security breach is equivalent to a marijuana seed company printing MARIJUANA SEEDS on the outside of the package.

Here is a blurry photo taken by my cell phone of the envelope. Sorry I do not have better photo quality. I believe you can still make it out.


Intro is about 14 minutes long. It shows news footage from a Midland, TX news station of Mr. Cooper making drug busts. This leads into biographical info about Mr. Cooper where he informs us that he has trained coon dogs; obedience trained family pets and police dogs. At 21 he graduated from a police academy. He says that he trained his own drug dog when the Permian Basin police dept called him for an interview. His dog did well on the interview and they hired him. At about 12 minutes he begins to talk about protecting the 4th Amendment right.


Topics

1. How a narcotic detector dog works. You want a dog with high prey drive. Scent a ball with the smell of pot and he thinks anything that smells like weed is concealing his ball. Dogs can separate odors. Masking substances do not work. Coffee grounds do not mask odor. Nor does mustard, fabric softener, petroleum products, pepper, vanilla. Claims dogs cannot smell through anything and that instead odors permeate out. The rate at which odors permeate is different for every container that marijuana can be placed in.

But, Mr. Cooper does not know how long permeation takes with each item. Says if you are traveling with a few joints to place them in a non-contaminated container....meaning that there are no traces of marijuana on the outside of the container just before leaving. Even though he just stated that he does not know how long it takes odors to permeate and form a scent cone on the outside of the container he claims that one will not form in time for a dog to smell it. How can he know that if he doesn't know how long it takes for the odor to permeate or what kind of container it is?

Next he tells us that microscopic dust is transferred to our fingers every time we handle marijuana and if we haven't cleaned our hands this dust will be transferred to the door handle of the car causing a dog to alert. So keep your hands clean.

Hiding marijuana in food:

Claims hiding marijuana in food like hamburger patties is a good idea because the dog, while able to smell individual odors, it cannot communicate to the handler that it smells marijuana in the hamburger patties. The dog will react but the handler will think the dog is reacting to the meat.

I say that doesn't make any sense because he has already stated that odors permeate and that dogs smell odors separately. A properly trained dog will smell the meat but also still smell the marijuana and alert on it. If the dog shows any interest at all in a package of hamburger patties I'd wager that a cop will look inside the package.


Distractions:

Dogs that have high prey drive, such as the ones that are trained to sniff drugs (German Shepherds, Labs), cannot focus on finding 'the ball' (read your stash) when there is some other type of prey in the area....like a cat in the car.
Mr. Cooper claims that even if the cat is removed the dog still will not focus on anything but finding the cat.

I've read a lot of information on German Shepherds just recently because I got one for Christmas and I have read a great deal about their training and abilities to learn. This site Leerburg is run by a man who has trained German Shepherds and other dogs for police work for many years. He is a former narcotics officer as well. There is something called "training under distraction" that makes me question the notion that a cat would be enough to throw a properly trained narcotics dog off the trail.

Mr. Cooper claims it was impossible to get his canine to search for marijuana if they were pulled over near a road kill.

Claims deer scent and fox urine that hunters use should be used to spray your tires.

If deer scent on your automobile was enough to make a dog interested or excited then every hunter in America would be complaining of police harassment. If you used fox urine on your car tires then wouldn't that cause the dog to go crazy over the tires, and that wouldn't the dog's excitement be used as probable cause? Also, if this were true then police canines would go crazy every time they sniffed tires of any car because there isn't a car tire in America that doesn't have some dog piss on it. I don't imagine fox piss is much different.


False Alerting:

Mr. Cooper claims handlers cause their dogs to false alert all of the time. The dog thinks he/she is finding their favorite toy and will do anything to get it. Handlers have learned this and through voice commands can cause their canines to false alert. The most often used command to get a dog to false alert is;

"Schh!t Get it! Get it!"

This works because the dog has been trained with that command when it is about to get its ball.

I can buy that that is one of the truths mixed into this video.

Concealing your stash:

Wear latex gloves when hiding your stash in your automobile.

Never hide your stash on the exterior of the vehicle.

Never keep it in plain sight. DUH!

Never hide stash in easy to find locations like the ashtray or glove compartment.

Never conceal your stash in an overnight bag.

Hide your stash in hard to find places such as way underneath the dash where there are lots of crevices.

He said during his time as a narc he would feel underneath the dash for a pound but never took the time to search every crevice. What he doesn't say is that not all officers follow the same rules that he did. Every officer has different methods of doing things and the one that stops you just might take the time to search every cranny under your dash.

Claims it is a good idea to hide your stash toward the middle of the interior of the vehicle instead of close to the exterior. Also recommends concealing your stash as high up as you can get it such as in the headliners of vehicles. Claims it is hard for a narcotic detector dog to sniff 'up high.'

I can just about guarantee that's bullshit. What difference does it make to a trained narcotics dog if the pot is near the dome light or in the floorboard?


Claims another good place is to carry it in your hand. Claims an informant once told him he always carried it in his hand and never carried more than he could eat.

I know a lot of people who live by that code.
What he doesn't say is that if you are observed by an officer eating it you will still be charged with destruction of evidence, internal possession and whatever else they can make up to charge you with. I've read stories of people choking to death on baggies of weed in order to keep the cops from finding it.

Claims he noticed a small trap door cut in the floorboard on the driver's side of many vehicles. This trap door was used to get rid of the stash and if he saw the stash on the road it then he just thought it was road debris.

Be creative when hiding your stash. Hide it in places such as a straw and then throw the straw back in the fast food bag.

Yeah...right...like the cops aren't going to be looking at straws for cocaine or meth residue...give me a break! Also, one of the things police look for when profiling drug smugglers is fast food bags in the car.

Claims he never ever arrested anyone for marijuana brownies or cookies and that, if it is prepared in food, that is a safe way to transport it.

I have read stories of people being arrested for baked goods...mainly in California, and I once had a very close call involving some baked goods and an airport sniffer machine. So, I am not sure anyone should trust that method.


Search and Seizure:

Three things that are vital that you need to know about search and seizure law.

1. Reasonable Suspicion
2. Probable cause
3. Consent to search

Reasonable Suspicion

Reasonable suspicion is when an officer sees different items that when viewed together as a package indicates you are committing a crime.
A few examples of things that give an officer reasonable suspicion are a shaky hand from being nervous. He says this alone is not enough for search. He also says different stories from driver and passenger along with shaking hands will give an officer reasonable suspicion.

What if you aren't traveling with a passenger? He doesn't say.


Mr. Cooper says an officer can have any number of reasonable suspicions but cannot search your car unless he has consent, a canine alerts or some other probable cause.

Probable Cause.

An officer only needs one probable cause to search your car without your permission and you have to let the officer search or you will be arrested for resisting a search and seizure. Officer has to detect a crime is being committed in his presence through one of his senses. Sight, smell or canine alert gives an officer probable cause and there is nothing you can do about it.

Things to avoid if you don't want to give an officer probable cause.

Don't have a marijuana leaf key ring. This allows the officer to reasonably suspect that you smoke pot. (DUH!)

Don't have beer in the console.(DUH!)

Don't have rolling papers in the glove compartment. (DUH!)

Don't have rubber bands on your gear shift. That makes an officer think you are smuggling money. (Ok...how many people do you know that ride around with rubber bands on their gearshift? This is the one thing I learned from this DVD that I didn't already know. It wasn't useful because I am not a money smuggler.)


Don't leave roaches in the ashtray. (Geez...could you please get to the part where you are telling me something I don't already know that will be useful in keeping me out of jail?)

Don't have a pipe visible. (DUH! I want my money back)

Make sure there are no seeds in the floor board.

Don't carry High Times where an officer can see it.

Don't carry scales where a cop can see them.

Don't carry plastic baggies where an officer can see them.

Don't carry two shaving cream cans. This lets the cops know that one is potentially a stash can.

All of these things (with the exception of the rubber band thing) are things that most pot smokers know and mostly follow. Sure, you get the occasional dufus that rides down the road while rolling a joint in plain sight or perhaps someone who forgot they tucked one behind their ear or left a roach in the ashtray but that isn't the norm. After watching this segment I felt like I had just spent the day in kindergarten relearning my ABC's.


Consent to search

Unbelievably Mr. Cooper starts this segment off by stating that all our lives we have been told to refuse consent. He then states that he does not recommend that. He claims that if you have hidden your stash in a hard to find location, such as those supposedly covered earlier, (under the dash is all I have seen so far and seems to me like everyone, including the cops, dogs and even my Memaw already knows that one) that you should GIVE THE OFFICER PERMISSION TO SEARCH IF HE ASKS!!!

WTF???

He goes on to explain that 100 times out of 100 that when someone refused consent to search they had something in their vehicles they did not want found. Claims it was usually drugs but could sometimes be something like a dirty magazine. When you refuse consent it gives officers reasonable suspicion. If you consent the officer will PROBABLY make a quick search and let you go. Who wants to take chances with a 'probably' when they are carrying weed?

Claims that if you refuse search that the officer then has the legal authority to do a weapons pat down of your vehicle. Officer can also call out a narcotics dog. If the dog fails to alert Mr. Cooper claims the officer will sometimes cause the dog to false alert thereby giving the officer probable cause. Officer will also call out to his/her cop buddies "I have a refusal, I have a refusal" which brings in more officers to try and figure out how to get into your car.

Now wait a minute....if the officer already did a 'pat-down search' of your cars interior then didn't he already gain access? I say stand your ground and refuse the search no matter what. I find it very odd that from his opening statement on the DVD and throughout every segment he harps on the 4th Amendment and how it has been eroded and how he wants to protect it and restore it and then he tells you quite plainly to completely disregard it when you are asked to consent to a search.
What gives?

See, the laws are different in every state. Like here in Alabama up until Oct. 1, 2006 one joint would get you a misdemeanor but if you were caught with a second joint at some later date that was an automatic felony punishable by up to 10 years in state prison. Mr. Cooper did not cover state-by-state laws and that places people in danger by telling them to consent to a search, especially if they have marijuana. When you consent you give up the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. When you give up that right it no longer protects you in the court of law. When you maintain that right you can always state in open court that you NEVER gave the officer consent to search. You may not win in court by saying that you did not consent, but if you consent then you give up all rights to the protections under to the 4th amendment. Why further limit your options for a good outcome when you suddenly find yourself sucked into the criminal injustice system?


Narcotics Profiling:

Narcotics profiling is defined as the methods used by law enforcement to increase the chances of a drug arrest based on visual cues and indicators prior to the traffic stop.

Things that differentiate a user from a smuggler.

Not being local.

At this point Mr. Cooper takes his personal vehicle and parks in the place he used to park when he was a narcotics interdiction officer.

Mr. Cooper says he knew when someone wasn't a local because of the way they would proceed through the intersection that he was watching. Notes an older white man in a Tahoe that isn't using a turn signal and says that doesn't interest him. Notes a black male and a black female in a Lincoln and says the car is interesting to him. Doesn't say why that particular car is interesting. Claims interest isn't racial and states that he arrested more white people than black during his career as a drug cop. "I am absolutely not racist" he says.

To me he is saying the equivalent of "I'm not racist...I have lot's of black friends." I also don't buy that he arrested more white people than black people for drugs during his career because statistical evidence would not back up that claim. Not unless he includes Hispanic people in the white category or unless he lives in an all white town.

Claims lot's of cops are racist but he isn't one of them and then the next word out of his mouth is 'Mexicans". Mr. Cooper would be wise to learn that lot's of Hispanics are AMERICANS and not MEXICANS. Being of Hispanic descent does not make one automatically from Mexico.


Mr. Cooper pulls up behind the Lincoln and says that he at that time he would run a license plate check and then states that he wouldn't on that car because it has a sticker that indicates it was bought locally.

He then goes into how DARE and Just Say NO to Drugs stickers would alert him to a vehicle as would any other stickers claiming support of law enforcement such as Fraternal Order of Police.

White males with long hair.

Next Mr. Cooper hits us with an honest explanation of why cops like busting people. He says they will tell you when asked that it is because want to help people or they want to keep drugs out of the hands of kids. Mr. Cooper says, and I quote, "That's bullcrap. They do this because they like the adrenaline rush." While driving around in his SUV with the camera rolling and pointing out who he would stop and why he states that he is starting to get that old adrenaline rush. He says that the adrenaline rush he received from narcotics busts was addictive and lead him to do things like leave suspects un-cuffed in hopes that they would run or fight.
He validates drug policy reforms position that the "what about the children?" is a government ploy.

This part of the video has been pretty good and, as far as I can tell, one of the only really truthful parts. It doesn't give us any new information though....it simply confirms what we have long suspected.


Interstate Interdiction and Profiling:

Out of state tags and black occupants.

Disabled vet tags because most disabled vets were in Vietnam and probably smoked pot and got addicted to heroin.

Driving a Corvette and wiping your nose

Vehicles riding low in the back.

Claims you are safer transporting on a rainy day because officers don't like to get wet.

Fraternity and sorority stickers indicate college kids and everyone knows college kids smoke marijuana.

Bibles and Jesus Fish

This portion of the video confirmed what most of us already know and that is that EVERYONE is a suspect in the war on drugs.


Traffic Stops:

In this segment Mr. Cooper shows footage of actual stops he made that were captured by his dashboard police camera. He points out the things that suspects did that made them suspicious.

Near the end he shows a stop where he got the drivers consent to search and found three hundred pounds of marijuana. He then asks the driver why he gave consent to search and the driver responds that he would have searched anyway. Mr. Cooper claims that isn't true. He would have just walked the dog around and it would have alerted and then he would have searched. It all comes to the same damn thing anyway. Seems like a lot of hair splitting to me....not to mention that it contradicts Mr. Coopers earlier advice to give consent to search even if you are carrying marijuana.

At this point I have not learned a lot of new or useful information from this video. It has confirmed my belief that everyone is a suspect in the drug war and that no matter what you do cops will search your car when they damn well feel like it. Most of it is common sense stuff that every pot smoker already knows, such as the sections on not having a marijuana key chain, beer visible, plastic baggies and such. Making sure your tag, license and insurance are current, not acting nervous. Stuff we already knew. Not stuff that we always follow but know that we should be following nonetheless.

Mr. Cooper included some tried and true drug policy reform quotes and stats, a few lines about how he feels bad for all the families he destroyed, anecdotes about his five arrests, some truth about cops and their intentions and why they do what they do even when they know it isn't making a difference. It may impress many people to hear that coming out of a former cops mouth. I was far more impressed when I heard LEAP speakers for the first time than I am with this cop and this video.

I did not learn any way to keep a narcotics dog from detecting my bag nor to keep a cop from searching my car. Having to sit through 90 minutes of being told things even the most amatuer pot smoker should already know was insulting. The fact that this DVD has been packaged and marketed as a way to help people stay out of jail and sold for a massive profit does not lend any credibility to the notion put forth by Mr. Cooper that he wishes to atone for his sins as a narcotics officer. If that notion were true then this video would have contained information that is actually useful when trying to avoid narcotics dog and officer detection and it would have been disseminated for free. However, according to this video there isn't a damn thing I can do to ensure I will "Never Get Busted Again".

I say it's false advertising and I want my money back.

I have one more DVD to review called "Hidden Compartments" and if this DVD I just watched is any indication of what the next one holds then it will likely show me all of the hidden compartments that cops can find and tell me not to use them, but offer no way for me to use a hidden compartment without police detection. However, I do not transport amounts large enough to need a hidden compartment of any complexity so I may just skip it and give the second disc to Saul as a new chew toy. I'm sure at least he will find it useful.

My advice to drug policy reformers and pot smokers is Don't Waste Your Money Supporting this Snake Oil Salesman. Your security will be compromised right off the bat with a large NeverGetBusted.com printed on the return address label. If you want to help end the drug war do that by donating the $24.95 I just saved you on this video to various organizations like these Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Flex Your Rights, Drug Policy Alliance, NORML, Me, and MPP or any one of a whole host of others active drug policy reform organizations in the US and across the globe who provide the information conatined in this video for free.

Other drug policy reformers covering Mr. Cooper's video
Flex Your Rights
The Windy Pundit
Drug War Rant
Blame the Drug War
Newsvine
Cannabis Culture Forums

P.S. Be sure to check out Barry Cooper's Response to my Review. This dude is a psycho!

P.S.S Now Barry says Oops...I'm sooooo sorry