Al Gore's Son Arrested Again on Drug Charges

July 4, 2007 — -- For the second time in four years, former Vice President Al Gore's son has been arrested on charges of possessing marijuana in his car.

Al Gore III, 24, was driving a blue Toyota Prius on the San Diego Freeway at about 100 mph at 2:15 a.m. Wednesday morning when a sheriff's deputy stopped him at the Crown Valley Parkway exit, said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

The deputy smelled marijuana, a quantity of which he found in the vehicle, while also discovering two prescription bottles containing Valium, Vicadin, Xanax, and Adderall.

"He was cooperative and admitted to smoking marijuana very recently," Amormino told ABCNEWS.com. "None of those drugs in his possession did he have a prescription for," said the spokesman, adding that one of the bottles had no writing on it and one had partial writing on it in someone else's name.

The former vice president's son, an associate publisher at Good magazine, was taken into custody and booked into the Santa Ana Inmate Reception Center on narcotics possession charges. Bail has been set at $20,000. The sheriff's department was not sure if Gore's father or mother had contacted their son. Al Gore was traveling back from Europe today, and was not available for comment.

"He's still being booked," said Amormino. The Prius, an environmentally-friendly hybrid car championed by his father, was impounded.

The young Gore has a history of driving violations.

In December 2003, Gore III was arrested on a marijuana possession charge after police in Montgomery County, Md., stopped the Cadillac he was driving for not having its headlights on. Officers found a partial marijuana cigarette and a baggie containing suspected marijuana, according to police.

Gore and two male passengers were arrested and Gore later entered a substance-abuse program that included 12 weeks of urine testing, community service and substance-abuse counseling.

He was also ticketed for reckless driving by North Carolina police in August 2000 when he was clocked going 94 mph, and military police arrested him for drunken driving near a military base in Virginia in September 2002.