America:As a narcotics officer in West Texas, Barry Cooper was a star, arresting more than 800 people in eight years, mostly for possession of marijuana. Cruising the highways with a dog trained to detect drugs, Cooper would stop up to 30 cars a day, choosing his targets carefully.
"We would pull over cars that had college bumper stickers, because we knew college kids often partied with marijuana. We would pull over 'Vietnam Vet' plates, because a lot of our vets developed a habit over there," he told National Public Radio this week.
"I feel bad about it. I would look for Mexicans. I would look for black people. It works." When Cooper left the police force after he arrested the mayor's son for drug possession, he soon discovered how harsh the law can feel from the other side when he was arrested, first for returning videos late and later for unlawfully carrying a gun.
"I used to break into houses at three o'clock in the morning with 10 other men, after throwing a flash grenade through the window," Cooper says. "I would drag Mom and Dad away and send the kids to the department of human services - over a bag of pot - and totally ruin that entire family. I started reaping what I had sown." Confronted with the reality of US drugs policy, which saw 1.8 million arrests in 2005, 42 per cent of them for marijuana, Cooper changed sides in the war on drugs.
Drawing on his experience as a narcotics officer, he had produced a DVD that coaches marijuana users on where to hide their stash, how to confuse sniffer dogs and how best to avoid being stopped in the first place.
Called Never Get Busted Again, the video features recordings of real arrests Cooper made, demonstrating the techniques police officers use and suggesting the best ways to get around them.
Cooper warns that hiding marijuana inside a jar of coffee beans will not stop a dog from finding it; instead, he suggests spraying your tyres with fox urine or buying a cat.
"It's a good idea to carry a cat in your car if you're going to have a couple of marijuana cigarettes. This confuses the dog so his drive is channelled to chasing these things instead of looking for marijuana," he says. Cooper's video may help some crafty marijuana users to avoid arrest but it will take more than such helpful hints to make a real impact on America's war on drugs, which has seen the number of drug offenders imprisoned soar over two decades.
There are almost half a million people serving time in the US for drug offences - about a quarter of the entire prison population. Only 14 per cent of American drug users are black but African-Americans comprise 37 per cent of those arrested and 56 per cent of those in prison for drug offences.
One reason for the over-representation of blacks in the prison system is a huge discrepancy in sentencing for possession of powder cocaine and crack cocaine. Since 1988, possession of five grams of crack cocaine - which is mostly used by blacks - landed a person in jail for five years. But people caught with cocaine powder - mostly used by whites - would have to possess 100 times that amount, or 500 grams, to get the same five-year stint behind bars.
Civil rights activists have long argued that the 100 to one sentencing ratio is unfair and this week, the US Sentencing Commission took a first step towards narrowing the gap. With little fanfare, the commission reduced its recommended sentences so that up to four out of five people found guilty of crack-cocaine offences will get sentences that are about 16 months shorter than they would have been under the former guidelines.
The new guidelines will have a limited impact, however, unless Congress lifts the mandatory minimum sentences it imposed in 1986 at the height of the war on drugs. Several bipartisan bills pending in Congress would reduce the disparity by increasing the penalties for possessing powder cocaine while reducing the mandatory minimum related to crack. One Republican bill would simply increase the powder-cocaine penalty to the penalty level for crack.
Later this month, the sentencing commission will decide if the new sentence guidelines for crack should be made retroactive. That would mean that almost 20,000 people now serving time for crack offences could see their sentences reduced by an average of more than two years.
