Posted December 3rd, 2012 by hiwayhowie
Lawman’s blues
Few dare tell the truth about drugs
“You ask any DEA man, he’ll say, ‘There’s nothing we can do.’” — Glenn Frey, “Smuggler’s Blues”
Imagine a world where doctors were the only people who were not allowed to offer their opinions on medicine. Or where what farmers thought about agriculture was left unsaid for fear of public disapproval.
That, more or less, is the situation for law enforcement officers when it comes to any real conversation about how the United States deals with the problems associated with drug abuse. The ones who know from personal, and sometimes heart-breaking, experience just how futile the whole sad enterprise is are the ones who dare not speak out for fear of being seen as soft on crime.
There are, luckily, exceptions. One of them rode through Salt Lake City the other day, on his bicycle and on a lonely mission to show the American people just how wrong we are to continue to insist on taking a law enforcement hammer to a public health nail.
Howard Wooldridge is a retired Michigan police officer and a co-founder of the national organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (www.leap.cc). As he explained to The Salt Lake Tribune the other day — and to many others along his ride from Oregon to Georgia — the problems we associate with drug use are not caused by users.
They are caused by the laws, law enforcement officers, judges and, mostly, craven politicians who dare not see or tell the truth about how the ongoing prohibition of drugs is nearly as destructive and just as futile as was the prohibition of alcohol early in the last century.
LEAP favors the legalization, regulation and taxation of now-illegal drugs, along the same model as alcohol and tobacco. That may be too drastic for our culture to embrace all in one go. But even moving toward a decriminalization approach, which stresses education and treatment over arrest and incarceration, would be a huge improvement.
Alcohol and tobacco, of course, create a long list of serious social and health problems. But heavily armed drug lords and the destruction of civil society in parts of Mexico, clogged courts and packed prisons in the United States and street violence of the kind that claimed the life of an Ogden police officer only a few months ago are not among them..
If we took the undeniably huge problem of drug abuse away from the police and gave it to the doctors, where it by all logic and humanity belongs, we could save billions in law enforcement costs, spend millions on treatment, and take a huge step toward real national sobriety.
Posted November 30th, 2012 by hiwayhowie
By Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Three men riding bicycles across the country, from Newport to Savannah, Ga., Passed through Sweet Home last week on a quest to promote adventure bicycling and the end of prohibition of marijuana.
Their leader, retired police detective Howard “Cowboy” Wooldridge, has crossed America twice on horseback, from Savannah to Newport in 2003 and Los Angeles to New York City in 2005, a total of 6,400 miles in the saddle. This time he is joined by his brother, Frosty Wooldridge, and friend Wayne Oberding. All are more than 60 years old.
They passed through Sweet Home on April 23.
“I spent the night in Sweet Home with a state trooper, whose wife I met at the edge of town,” Howard Wooldridge said. She was intrigued by his T-shirt, which said, “Legalize Pot.”
“People reacted well to the horse,” Wooldridge said of his previous trips. He is one of about six people who has traveled coast to coast by horse in the 21st century, while thousands have done it on bicycle; and people invariably opened their doors to a cowboy. He and his horse stayed in barns and corrals. Sometimes, he was invited to stay in a house.
“The horse being in a corral was good for the horse,” Wooldridge said. Traveling like that with a horse is much more difficult than bicycling because the horse must be fed, and the rider must think about shelter, water, shoes and injury.
“Now I’m doing another Paul Revere ride,” he said, the opposite way, with a bike.
Why legalize pot?
“We need to do a better job of protecting our children,” he said. “We’re missing pedophiles because they’re flying around in helicopters looking for green plants.”
The black market in drugs gives a job option to youths that is dangerous and kills them, Wooldridge said. That applies across the board.
“At the end of the day, I would end all drug prohibition,” Wooldridge said. They all provide the dangerous job options to youths, and they take away from public safety.
“I emphasize police should be involved with public safety not personal safety,” Wooldridge said. Like shopping or gambling problems, “if you have personal issues, that should be handled by family and friends.”
As a lobbyist with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition in Washington, D.C., for the past six years, that’s a message he repeats constantly, and he insists that drugs should be a 10th Amendment issue, meaning individual states should decide how to handle drugs rather than the federal government – “Let Oregon run Oregon.”
“We’re going to start with marijuana,” he said. “It is demonstrably less dangerous than alcohol.
“In 2003, the message was well-received with exceptions. So far, in Oregon, it’s 100-percent positive.”
National polls passed the 50-percent mark supporting legalization last year, he said. It’s time to do it.
Posted November 29th, 2012 by hiwayhowie
By Steve Lathrop, Albany Democrat-Herald
The route is familiar. The message the same. Only the mode of transportation has been changed.
In 2003, Howard Wooldridge rode horseback from Savannah, Ga., across the country to Newport on the Oregon Coast to promote his belief that marijuana should be treated like alcohol. Now 60, Wooldridge is retracing the trip in reverse, this time on a bicycle.
“I was in your paper nine years ago when I came through on a horse,” said Wooldridge, who stopped at the Democrat-Herald on Monday. “It was a Paul Revere-like ride to inform America.”
He and his brother Frosty, 65, and friend Wayne Oberding, 70, set out Sunday from Newport expecting to reach their Georgia destination in about two months. He still sees himself in the Paul Revere role alerting people to his cause.
“There is a need to put an end to marijuana prohibition,” he said. “I don’t use the word legalize. I just want to get police back to the business of protecting the public.”
Wooldridge says marijuana is an individual choice and not something that the government can control. He said law enforcement efforts should be focused on public safety and protecting the innocent, especially children.
“The government can’t fix stupid,” said Wooldridge, a retired detective from Michigan. “Marijuana should be treated like alcohol.”
The trio, decked out in T-shirts promoting their trek, will be peddling up to 60 miles a day, camping most of the time. They will visit parts of 10 states.
“The hospitality on my last trip was amazing, but part of that may have been because of Misty,” Wooldridge said, referring to his horse. “I’m not expecting the same thing this time.”
Motels will likely be used every few days in order to shower and clean up. Wooldridge has no public appearances planned. He is counting on the ride alone to draw attention to the cause.
Wooldridge has been touting his cause for 15 years and is currently a lobbyist against what he calls drug prohibition in Washington, D.C.
“I’m trying to make something happen on the federal level,” he said. “I want people in each state to make their own determination about it. Let Oregon run Oregon.”
Posted November 14th, 2012 by hiwayhowie
COP in Colorado
Stories from the weeks of November 2 & 9, 2012
Right place, right time: Bob Wiley picked out a busy intersection near his home in Colorado Springs for our last effort there on Sunday. The gods smiled on us with a gorgeous day and as a bonus, an off-duty reporter happened by. She put together a first class 92 second report that first aired Sunday night. On Monday, national Fox News picked up her piece and it was shown all over Colorado and the nation. I had yet another shot from Bob’s bottle of Crown Royal whiskey. What a way to end our effort! URL here.
http://www.coloradoconnection.com/news/politics/story.aspx?id=821424#.UJvGD-RLVtk
Priorities: The victory party for Amendment 64 started at 7 PM in Denver. By then Misty and I were in Missouri. Yup, we missed a great party. My thoughts were with my long-suffering Karen in Maryland. I learned that 64 passed with 55% of the vote, just as we turned into the motel in Indiana. I gave Misty an extra pound of carrots to celebrate. The next day we arrived home, our journey and effort done.
Epilogue: Election night my thoughts drifted back to California and 2010. So, I called Richard Lee who spent 1.6 million of his own money to pass legalization with his Prop 19….which did not pass. I thanked Richard for his sacrifice of money and sweat and I declared him the father of the victories in Colorado and Washington.
Karen was happy the Cartels did not shoot me. The gun you might see on some fotos was her request to have a fighting chance, if the violence of Mexico migrated up to Colorado.
Ode to Misty: “Uh-ohh. Howard has ridden me 3 times this week. We are going someplace.” That was in August. And with that realization, Misty had to prepare herself, mentally and physically, for yet another long trailer ride and upon arrival, standing nearly motionless on one busy street corner after another. She knew that foul-smelling diesel smoke would mix with gasoline fumes to make her day less than pleasant. She knew she would be spending all night in her tight, little trailer while Howard slept at the motel. Misery was spelled: Howard-on-the-road-for- politics.
Indeed the first 16 days and nights in Colorado played out as described above. Finally Misty caught a break n/o Denver at Bo & Betsy Shaffer’s farm, when she shared a paddock w/ two llamas. Then the last 10 days in Colorado Springs area Bob Wiley secured a stall for her. She was able to sleep on the ground and really rest.
Misty has carried the anti-prohibition message on her back since 2001. She carried my little butt across America twice, while I wore the COP T-shirt. She spent two months in California for Prop 19; now one month for Amendment 64. Thru it all she did not complain, act up or be anything other than my magnificent, Texas horse & partner. Her good looks made her a TV star & our message to be seen my millions. Her calm disposition kept me alive by NOT suddenly walking into the traffic. She has done enough. I will ask no more of my Misty. She is retired from politics. I let her know, as I turned her out into the paddock back in Maryland.
Media this last week in Colorado:
One Fox TV which went national:
http://www.coloradoconnection.com/news/politics/story.aspx?id=821424#.UJvGD-RLVtk
One magazine article/foto – Colorado Springs Business Journal:
http://csbj.com/2012/11/07/amendment-64-the-real-challenge-lies-ahead-for-legalized-marijuana/
URL from last week’s paper in Pueblo: Howard Wooldridge
Howard Wooldridge. Photo by: John Jaques. Howard ‘Cannabis COP’ Wooldridge a former detective stumps for Amendment 64 on his horse Misty on the corner …
www.chieftain.com/…/image_c56139c2-c8d0-52ec-b7ac-fdfc…
Media this week:
1 Fox TV report +++ it went national on the Fox Network
2 major newspapers
Posted November 13th, 2012 by hiwayhowie
COPs in Colorado
I will vote for the horse: Several people this week said they would vote for ‘yes’ on Misty but not for Amendment 64. Maybe Misty should run for office?
We finished up northern Colorado over the weekend with time in Fort Morgan and Sterling. Loveland was a busy day at a major intersection and a one hour interview and chat with the reporter from their daily paper. The next two were in Longmont and again lots and over-whelmingly positive responses. We stayed at the home of Bo & Betsy Shaffer for 3 days. Misty was able to stay in a half acre area with two llamas. The big snow on Thursday meant i had the time to run some errands in Denver, plus see my brother and have dinner with my ‘librarian’ Karen Bury and her husband Paul. I finished the day off with a radio interview that night.
The ‘Coffin Races’ near Colorado Springs took up our Saturday. Bob Wiley, Misty and I worked the 3-4,000 strong crowd with our signs. Misty and I greeted the people as they walked towards the downtown. Just before the parade and races began, we walked to the festivities. The police officer said nothing, so we just used the sidewalk to make our way to a tiny park which afforded Misty soft shavings to stand on the next two hours. See foto….Bob and I spoke to dozens of people and several hundred took our picture. Yes, it was a bit dicey* to put Misty on a crowded sidewalk but I had faith and it went smooth as silk.
We spent Sunday splitting our day. First two hours were spent at the ‘Focus on the Family’ mega – church where 5,000 plus gather. Bob and I were able to cover the large intersection ourselves. We both noted that we had very few negative responses from this very conservative venue. After lunch we parked ourselves at the busiest intersection in Colorado Springs. Again, lots of enthusiasm and fotos taken (close to 4 per minute = above average). About five o’clock we were calling it a day, when the TV crew from ABC showed up. After an interview, Misty and I went back to the intersection to allow the cameraman 15 minutes to record how this is done. Misty certainly got an extra pound of carrots upon our return to the barn.
Note: Bob arranged for Misty to have a stall in a barn. She is sleeping on the ground = much more rested and alert during her ‘working day.’
URL for TV report: http://www.krdo.com/news/Cowboy-campaigns-to-legalize-cannabis/-/417220/17170736/-/vaj4xo/-/index.html
Media in second week:
1 newspaper
1 radio
1 TV
