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"For public health reasons, I'd like to see marijuana legalized," Beal says. He expects anywhere from 75,000 to 100,000 people to show up on May 6, 2000, to fight for the legalization of marijuana. He also isn't too concerned about arrests, because "they," namely New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and police commissioner Howard Safir want to keep arrests down so they can later deny that anything ever took place, says Beal. "We want to see masses of people condemning arrest," Beal says. "If they arrest 10,000 people in one day, we'd be in the papers everywhere - in India!" Sidetracked once again, Beal once again asks "are you Dominick's friend," to another stranger entering the room? No, she isn't Dominick's friend either, just a 29-year-old drug-war activist from Houston "looking for like-minded people" in New York, where she'll soon be living full-time. The tall Texan found out about Beal and this year's march when she was surfing the web. Beal is listed as a "celebrity" at www.cannabis2000.com.
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itting
in a chair behind a cluttered desk in a cluttered room in
a dilapidated East Village townhouse, Dana Beal, the self-proclaimed
"Initiator" of the Millennium Marijuana March, is complaining about
a lot of things. The early Saturday morning rain was enough to call
off the training session, which is normally held in Washington Square
Park. "Are you Dominick's friend," asks Beal as a stranger approached
him? No, it was not Dominick's friend; it was just a reporter with
some questions. The white-haired Beal, who resembles Samuel Clemens,
a.k.a. Mark Twain, does not want to talk to the reporter. "I'm going
to be disappointed with anything you do," he says. Yet, he continued
to talk. 
n
a calm, almost scholarly manner, Beal
says Ibogaine is a religious sacrament. His relaxed posture and
even-toned voice give his audience the impression of being in a
college lecture hall. Ibogaine, an African root which is a stimulant
when admistered in low doses and a hallucinogen in high doses, is
the cure for hard-drug addictions, says Beal. After going into a
detailed explanation of the biological process that takes place
after consuming Ibogaine, Beal is once again fired up. He even gave
it to his son, when he thought the 21-year-old was drinking and
smoking cigarettes too much. The result? "He stopped drinking, tripped
for one day, and had residual effects for four days," Beal says.
Taking Ibogaine, according to Beal, is an ordeal, that he describes
only as a deep, religious experience, but of its power to cure addiction,
he is convinced. He's gonna keep fighting this battle. 
