Posted December 18th, 2012 by hiwayhowie
COP on the Hill
Stories from the weeks of December 7 and 14, 2012
Call United Van Lines: The hallways of the House Office Buildings are a mess. Furniture is stacked up in the hallways of over half the offices. This in preparation to deep clean the offices of those defeated or retired and Members who want a nicer office now have more seniority. Name plates are stripped from their mounts, as if the Congressman were already gone. Thus, making presentations is impossible.
The Senate affords their Members a bit more dignity. The Senators leaving are allowed in their offices until the last day of the session. Then the hallways become the same mess as the House. Since all energy is focused on the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ not much else can be done.
Mundane work for COP: This whole month is primarily devoted to cleaning up my spread sheets, dropping the Members no longer here and adding the 70 or so that are coming to town for the first time. I have also sent out some 200 email Christmas greetings to journalists and VIPs I have met over the years.
CATO has put on two excellent programs regarding drug prohibition. On the 5th I arrived early and was rewarded. The DC correspondent for the largest Mexican television network: Televisa: and I started chatting upon his arrival. He then asked for a 5 minute in camera interview on the topic. ?You want to be on Mexican TV? Be ready at the drop of a hat to be fluent in Spanish! NOTE: Unless there is an important event or hearing in DC, every Tuesday morning you will find me in a two hour ‘charla’ group at a local coffee shop. That is how I maintain and improve my Spanish. My T-shirt allows me to speak to dozens per week. With TV the same message reaches sometimes into the low millions.
I also attended a film opening in DC, “Colombia Unwrapped.” I had an excellent chat with the director and producer. Neill Franklin of LEAP was one of the several stars. He is a natural for a documentary.
I attended a strategy session on marijuana on the 11th. We in reform are confident that our Member/Champion will introduce a bill in the House almost identical to the first one: HR 2306….apply the 10th Amendment – States’ Rights. I am relieved.
Throw in a one hour radio program for attorneys and that describes the two weeks.
A moderate wind is blowing on my back. It feels wonderful. It feels strange. I remember well the gale winds in my face in Texas, when I started this journey 15 years ago.
Merry Christmas to you and your family and or Season’s Greetings. Hug the kids a little tighter. We have a 3 y/o grandson in Connecticut who just started pre-school. For 2-3 seconds my brain whirled at the thought he could he be a victim, before I realized he could not. Still.
Carpé Diem.
Fourth year stats for COP- August 1, 2012 thru July 31, 2013:
52 Presentations to Congressional staffers: 1 this week
4 TV (major networks = Fox, ABC, Televisa etc) interviews: 1 this week
7 Radio interviews: 1 this week
15 Blog, cable TV, minor media events: 1 this week
7 Newspaper articles: this week
2 seminar, hearing or briefing attended: this week
1 chat with Congressman: this week
11 Presentations to lesser VIPs: this week
Total stats for COP in first 3 years (not including Fourth Year stats):
- 944 Presentations to Congressional staffers
- 26 Appearances on major TV networks
- 14 published interviews in major (daily)newspapers
- 27 interviews and reports in minor media = blogs, cable TV, etc
- 66 published letters to the editor (value per MAPINC in free publicity: $65,000)
- 2 editorials in daily papers mentioning my efforts & in support of COP position
- 33 brief chats with Members of Congress
- 19 chats with other elected officials, state reps, senators, etc.
- 10 major conferences attended (CPAC, LULAC, NRA, etc)
- Permanent invitation to Grover Norquist’s Wednesday brunch attended by 150 conservative leaders. Named the “Grand Central Station of the Conservative Movement.”
- Consider being a member of COP at $30.00 or more per year. All contributions are tax-deductible. Law Enforcement’s voice in opposition to current policy is vital on the Hill to achieve a repeal of federal prohibition. COP provides that voice. If you agree that Modern Prohibition/War on Drugs is the most destructive, dysfunctional and immoral policy since slavery & Jim Crow and want to be a part of the solution… Go to:
Posted December 11th, 2012 by hiwayhowie
COP on the Hill
Stories from the weeks of November 16, 23 and 30– 2012
Cruise = 7 Rotaries?: Upon our (Misty and me) return to Maryland, we were barely unpacked, when it was time to take our first ever cruise ( our here = Karen and I). We flew to Fort Lauderdale. We broke bread with Irvin Rosenfeld (one of 4 federal patients who receives 300 MJ cigarettes each month) & Irvin’s significant other. The ship carried us to four ports-of-call in the Caribbean.
Besides resting and resting some more, I ended up being asked “Why?” about 70 times with a total audience of about 250 (15% of all the passengers) during the seven day cruise. Know that just answering the question is not work, just enjoyable. Karen was a great prop, as her hair was just starting to grow back i.e. less than a centimeter long.
Impure thoughts?: We in DC are having a 2013-2014 strategy meeting next week to decide what type of marijuana bill we will recommend to Members of Congress. Recall that in 2011 reformers ‘larded up’ a bill with all kinds of crap that would make it easy for a Member to oppose the bill in general. Luckily, Congressman Frank and Paul cleaned up the bill which eventually became a straight-forward ‘Repeal Federal Prohibition of Marijuana Bill’ = HR 2306.
Good news. I have spoken with two of the major players in reform and both said that we should recommend something simple and clean like 2306. It ain’t over but whew!
It is who you know that counts: On November 28 Grover Norquist invited his brunch attendees to a C-Span event at the Newseum. Arriving early as always, I had 3 good chats with journalists. If you saw it, that bald head that was always in the camera was mine & you saw me for two seconds at the very end putting on the Stetson. Time well spent. I took the Metro to Grover’s brunch, chatting the whole time with one of the 3 journalists.
Fourth year stats for COP- August 1, 2012 thru July 31, 2013:
51 Presentations to Congressional staffers: this week
3 TV (major networks = Fox, ABC, etc) interviews
6 Radio interviews: this week
14 Blog, cable TV, minor media events: this week
7 Newspaper articles: this week
2 seminar, hearing or briefing attended: this week
1 chat with Congressman: this week
11 Presentations to lesser VIPs: this week
Total stats for COP in first 3 years ( not including Fourth Year stats):
- 944 Presentations to Congressional staffers
- 26 Appearances on major TV networks
- 14 published interviews in major (daily)newspapers
- 27 interviews and reports in minor media = blogs, cable TV, etc
- 66 published letters to the editor (value per MAPINC in free publicity: $65,000)
- 2 editorials in daily papers mentioning my efforts & in support of COP position
- 33 brief chats with Members of Congress
- 19 chats with other elected officials, state reps, senators, etc.
- 10 major conferences attended (CPAC, LULAC, NRA, etc)
- Permanent invitation to Grover Norquist’s Wednesday brunch attended by 150 conservative leaders. Named the “Grand Central Station of the Conservative Movement.”
- Consider being a member of COP at $30.00 or more per year. All contributions are tax-deductible. Law Enforcement’s voice in opposition to current policy is vital on the Hill to achieve a repeal of federal prohibition. COP provides that voice. If you agree that Modern Prohibition/War on Drugs is the most destructive, dysfunctional and immoral policy since slavery & Jim Crow and want to be a part of the solution… Go to:
Posted December 4th, 2012 by hiwayhowie
By JOHN LA PORTE Times Editor Posted: 10/22/2012 04:49:04 PM MDT
Howard “Cowboy” Wooldridge, a retired police detective, demonstrates Friday in favor of Amendment 64 at Platte Avenue and Main Street in Fort Morgan. (Picasa) People in law enforcement have better things to do than chase petty offenders with small amounts of marijuana. So says retired police detective and lobbyist Howard “Cowboy” Wooldridge, who spent some time Friday on a downtown Fort Morgan street corner on horseback with a sign urging support of Amendment 64, which would legalize and regulate small amounts of marijuana in Colorado.
“We (law enforcement) need to focus our attention on pedophiles and other serious threats and not waste our time on the green plants,” he declares. The percentage of traffic stops that result in marijuana arrests is low, he said, and the number of deaths in Mexico in enforcment battles is high. Marijuana should, he says, be regulated like alcohol and subject to the same common-sense regulations.
Wooldridge started out in front of Walgreen’s, but local police, he said, politely informed him that he could not demonstrate on the grass or the sidewalk. The police, he said, were “very nice, very professional.” He went to management at a gas station across the street and was given permission to carry his sign on a dirt area adjacent to the station. And there he sat on his horse Misty for several hours, attracting some “thumbs up” signs, cheers, honks and waves and some “thumbs down.”
Wooldridge was taking a break from his fulltime work as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. in opposition to drug prohibition. He retired as a detective near Lansing, Mich. After 12 years on the street, moving first to Texas in a position in international customer relations — he speaks English, French, German and Spanish.
Is the push for legalizing marjuana getting anywhere? “The short answer is yes,” Wooldridge says. Several states, including Colorado, have deemed medicinal marijuana use appropriate, he points out, and several states have measures similar to Colorado’s 64 on the ballot. And in many states, an arrest for a small amount of marijuana is similar to a traffic ticket when it comes to penalties. “In terms of a time line this is very similar to women’s suffrage,” which took many years to pass, Wooldridge says. He adds, “My educated guess is about 10 more years.”
— Contact John La Porte at news@fmtimes.com.
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.
