Barry Cooper, a 38-year-old former narcotics cop, switched sides on the war on drugs in 2006, when he put out a DVD entitled Never Get Busted Again which offered marijuana users advice on how to avoid arrest during traffic stops.  His newest movie, Never Get Raided, teaches viewers how to buy, sell, and grow pot without going to jail as well as how to spot an undercover officer.

Mr. Cooper filed as a Libertarian candidate for Congress in the 31st Congressional District in Central Texas.  The odds are stacked against him - especially given the fact he was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Agency for smuggling drugs out of Mexico.  

"Let me tell you the drugs I smuggled from Mexico," he recalled telling an investigator. "The same drugs everybody smuggles from Mexico – the same ones your informant and my ex-wife smuggled from Mexico – they're called Valiums, and those little green pills that make you speed. Everyone grabs a box of those," he told the Dallas News.

While never convicted of the crime, Cooper became an avid drug user and promoter after turning in his DEA badge for a batch of pot.  

"The last three months of my law enforcement career, I had started smoking pot," the 38-year-old said recently. "And I noticed the people I had been arresting were nice people. They had a balanced checkbook, their kids made straight A's, and I was like, 'This drug is not making people crazy.' "

Interestingly, before hanging up his handcuffs in 1996, Cooper claims to have taken part in 800 drug busts, 300 of them felonies, and seized more than $500,000 in cash.  Pot smokers in Dallas' 31st might just be able to muster the strength to vote for him, but his chances in the House seem dismal.  Perhaps a Green Party ticket would energize the campaign properly. 

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