Updated: Irwin Dana Beal has been released from Gooding County Jail in Southern Idaho after being charged with felony marijuana trafficking on January 12. Bail was set at $250,000.
The legendary activist, who founded Cures Not Wars and the Global Marijuana March and is a longtime YIPPIE organizer, was arrested by Idaho State Police in Gooding, ID. A vehicle malfunction led to the police apprehension.
Beal is known to traffic in large quantities. When asked how much, a Sheriff's Office rep said it was "quite a bit." The quantity was actually 26 pounds, one pound over the limit that would turn into a mandatory five-year sentence if he's conviccted.
Beal was released on March 9, thanks to activists Adam Eidinger and Don Wirschafter who took responsibilty for the bond. Beal will be tried in Idaho later this year.
"Now I'm back to five years," he told the Village Sun from a hotel room in Twin Falls, "becasue I didn't take the deal. I'm going to fight it."
According to the aritcle, Beal was riding in an SVU carrying pounds of cheap weed fronted to him in Oregon when the vehicle broke down in Idaho. "I should have gotten a rental," he concedes. "I made the mistake three hours earlier of smoking a joint. Otherwise, there was no pretext to search."
Beal added:
"The pot cost $100 a pound. Do you know how much I was going to make when I got back to New York? A bunch."
In 2011, Beal was nabbed with 186 pounds in Wisconsin and served several years in jail where he survived a heart attack.
