11/13/2004
For
marijuana proponent, testing worse than jail
By Inquirer staff writer Joseph
A. Slobodzian
at 215-854-2658 or jslobodzian@phillynews.com.
at 215-854-2658 or jslobodzian@phillynews.com.
Edward Forchion's unique faith-based initiative - a religious exemption from marijuana laws because the drug is a sacrament to Rastafarians - ended yesterday with harsh penance from a federal judge: random drug testing.
(Click picture see video)
Forchion
- the Burlington County proponent of legal marijuana who styles himself
as NJ Weedman - and acolyte Patrick A. Duff, a Philadelphia car dealer
and ordained-by-mail Universalist Life Church minister, were each
sentenced to a year's probation and fined $150 for lighting up near the
Liberty Bell on Independence Mall.Forchion, 40, and Duff, 28, argued that the incidents on Dec. 20, March 20 and April 17 were protected by the Constitution and the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act because the smoking occurred in a Rastafarian religious service.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Arnold C. Rapoport agreed with National Park Service rangers and the prosecutor - smoking pot in the park violated Independence National Historical Park regulations and federal drug laws.
For the defendants, what was worse than losing what even Rapoport called a "unique case, to say the least, with some substantial issues," was random drug testing, the one mandatory term for all federal probationers.
To obtain a base-level reading, the judge said, both men had to say when they last used marijuana before their first urine test.
It was then about 3 p.m.
"Last night I ingested the sacrament cannabis at midnight," Duff replied.
"At 10 minutes after one today," Forchion said, "I pulled into the parking lot; I ingested the sacrament and prayed that you would not impose drug testing, which for me is a prison sentence."
Violating probation, Rapoport warned them, would result in a year in federal prison. The judge noted that earlier in the hearing, Forchion said he once had gone three years without smoking marijuana.
"If you can, on your own volition, stop using marijuana and now you don't - whatever happens to you, you do to yourself," Rapoport said. "Mr. Forchion, you're here simply because you've decided what the law is."
Forchion, Duff and pro bono attorney Michael Coard said they would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, if needed, to seek the same protection Catholics got for Communion wine during Prohibition and some Native American groups got for peyote.
Rapoport, however, said the videotapes Forchion and Duff made of their three arrests at Independence Mall undercut their own defense: "On its face, it's clearly a demonstration; the fact that you prayed... doesn't make this a religious service."
In one incident, Forchion and Duff prayed for prisoners serving time for violating marijuana laws. Duff then intoned, "It's time to practice our religion," and they lit a marijuana cigarette and began smoking before park rangers moved in.
Forchion, of Browns Mills, a courier and former trucker, has been an outspoken advocate of legalizing marijuana for about 10 years and a perennial political candidate.
Yesterday, his misfortunes kept compounding. After he admitted smoking marijuana before the sentencing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin R. Hayes reminded him he had better find another way home.
Getting arrested for driving under the influence, Rapoport added, would also violate probation.
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