People who could prove they had been vaccinated could claim free marijuana cigarettes at the event. Credit…Julia Gillard for The New York Times

He Fought for Decades to Make Marijuana Legal. Now What?

Dana Beal, a longtime Yippie, staged protests and fought the law and spent time in jail to make weed available for all. Is there a future in pot activism?

Dana Beal stood in Union Square Park explaining the provenance of the pot being given away to a crowd of expectant people who were gathering near a bronze statue of George Washington astride a horse.

He acknowledged that it might not be of the “green, fresh, aromatic, piney, incredibly potent” variety that is most popular. But it nonetheless possessed properties that would deliver a respectable high.

On top of that, Mr. Beal’s shrug seemed to say, it was free. He squinted into the sunlight, his white hair and generous mustache making him resemble a contemporary version of Mark Twain about to dispense a pithy insight.

“It’s just expired from the standpoint that nobody will buy it,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

Over the next several hours, on April 20, volunteers organized by Mr. Beal, members of the group Act Up and others handed out more than a thousand joints to people who could show that they were at least 21 and had received a Covid vaccine. A similar distribution is planned for May 1 to coincide with an annual May Day marijuana march held in Manhattan.

The giveaways are lawful under a New York State law enacted on March 31 that says people 21 and older can smoke marijuana anywhere tobacco smoking is allowed and may possess up to three ounces for recreational use.

Judging from attendance on April 20 — an unofficial pot smoker’s holiday with hazy roots in a tale about Californians who used to smoke at 4:20 each afternoon — the new rules would appear to be popular. A line that wrapped around Union Square included people in jackets and ties, running gear and shirts emblazoned with images of marijuana leaves. One man rolled up a sleeve to show a tattoo of a seven-pointed leaf on his forearm along with the word “stoners.” Some people who received joints casually lighted them up almost immediately, an act that has been illegal for most of Mr. Beal’s 74 years.

His decades demanding pot legalization have included battles with the authorities, arrests, stints in jail and the loss of a home. Now that public policy is beginning to catch up with positions he has long espoused, Mr. Beal is facing a set of new challenges. To start, what does he do next?

A longtime leader of the Youth International Party, more commonly known as the Yippies, Mr. Beal is a familiar figure within drug policy circles. He has spent years championing the use of Ibogaine, a derivative of an African shrub that is banned in the United States, to interrupt addiction to opioids, cocaine and methamphetamines.

But his most far-reaching legacy may be the hundreds of smoke-ins, marijuana marches, pot parades and similar events that he has organized in New York City and beyond since 1967.

Brandon Cuicchi of Act Up, an activist group that was started in the 1980s to address the AIDS crisis, said the organization had several reasons for taking part in the joint giveaways. Many people with AIDS or H.I.V., for instance, have turned to medical marijuana to ease the effects of antiretroviral medications, he said. Then there was the chance to work with Mr. Beal.

“Dana is the godfather of the modern pot legalization movement,” Mr. Cuicchi said. “His dedication has been unparalleled.”

Mr. Beal says it has also had a cost.

Read the rest at: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/29/nyregion/dana-beal-marijuana-activist.html