Gore's Son Arrested Driving Prius at 100mph ; NEWS

Jul 05, 02:07 AM

Current Headlines: By David Usborne

The Gores do love their hybrids. And now there is evidence of their versatility. Al Gore III, the 24-year-old son of the former vice-president, cranked up his Toyota Prius to a paint-stripping 100mph on the San Diego freeway yesterday.

Trouble was the police saw him do it. Even worse, when they pulled the young man over, they smelled marijuana and, on further investigation, found a small quantity of the illegal substance in the car alongside a collection of other medications including Xanax, Vicodin and Adderall.

"He does not have a prescription for any of those drugs," Jim Amormino, a spokesman for the Santa Ana Sheriff 's Department said, adding that Mr Gore was being held in jail on bail of $20,000. He said Mr Gore's blue Prius had been stopped by a police patrol at 2.15am on Wednesday.

The incident came as unwelcome Independence Day surprise for his greener-thanthou father, who may have done more to promote the Prius than even its Japanese makers. It also came at a time when Mr Gore Snr was under increasing pressure to join the 2008 presidential race. No candidate, however, would welcome family scandals of this ilk, particularly where drugs are concerned.

Another presidential run for Mr Gore - pipped by George Bush in 2000 after the Florida vote-counting fiasco - is considered unlikely by most analysts. More immediately, however, his son's escapade will be an unwelcome distraction as he tries to focus on final preparations for this Saturday's series of Live Earth concerts.

Trouble with Al Gore III is not a new experience for Mr Gore and his wife, Tipper. He was involved in a near-fatal traffic crash in Baltimore in 1989 when he was only six - a painful incident for the family that Mr Gore has often evoked in his electoral campaigns.

As an adult, however, the younger Gore has had repeated run-ins with the law, involving cars and drugs. In 2003, he was charged with marijuana possession in Maryland after police stopped a car he was driving without headlights. In February of the following year, he agreed to join a substance abuse programme as part of a plea agreement with the courts.

In September 2002, he was arrested by military police under suspicion of driving while drunk close to a military base in Virginia. His prospects appeared to have brightened in 2005, however, when he graduated from Harvard and landed a job as an associate publisher of Good Magazine, a start-up in Los Angeles.

While the rest of the country celebrated the Fourth of July, the younger Gore languished inside a cell at the Inmate Reception Centre in Santa Ana, to the south of Los Angeles. Officials confirmed that he had been charged before the bail amount was set.

This weekend's Live Earth concerts were to be a crowning moment for Mr Gore Snr, whose campaign to raise awareness of global warming took off with the publication of his book An Inconvenient Truth and the release of the film of the same name in 2005. Performers ranging from Madonna to The Police and Red Hot Chili Peppers will play at concerts around the world, including London and Paris. It has been billed at the largest charity concert event ever held.

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