I worked here from Feb - April, 2006. I really
enjoyed this but because of other issue's, like the "COST of LIVING" I came
back home. Although I believe I could still be in California in one of the
Medical marijuana dispensories I wouldn't have the cash to bring my family.
Additionally if I did bring my family, my kids would go from being one of
the normal middle class kids in my town (Browns Mills, NJ) to being a Southern
California poor kid. - Woodlane Hills is next to Calabasis California, the
movie elite live near here. Danzel Washington, drove by me oneday!!!
Anyway watch this epidose of a Day with the NJWEEDMAN |
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WEEDMAN off
to HOLLYWOOD Heading for greener pastures NJweedman ready to bid farwell
to N.J. By JOE
D’AQUILA Staff Writer
He’s Ed Forchion, aka the NJ Weedman, and the much maligned, often controversial,
repeatedly arrested activist and politician says
Once at his new
gig, Forchion said he’ll be assigned
to, what else, dispense marijuana. “I will
be selling marijuana legally,” Forchion
said.
He said the
company he’ll work for in He said his wife
and kids are going to stay behind in “I will have to
come back a couple times for my kangaroo court,” he said. He said though
that his new employer has helped set him up with an apartment to help
ease his transition, and said he’ll be making a very nice living doing
something he’s trained nearly his whole life for. “I’m going to be,
basically, the marijuana guru,” he said. So for Forchion, who also said he hopes his move to
Hollywood could start a new career in show business, it seems his
life has come full circle. “What I’m doing
is ironic,” he said. “Basically I became known and all this started
because I got busted selling weed. Now I’m going to |
WATCH THIS VIDEO
NJWEEDMAN at work in LA Sellin Weed,
legally!
Pot advocate relocates to California
Tuesday, February 21, 2006 By RICHARD PEARSALL Courier-Post Staff 
Weedman, aka Ed Forchion, has left New Jersey for Southern California
and a job selling marijuana for medical purposes."I feel like I left the police state and found freedom here," the former Browns Mills resident and longtime advocate for legalized 
marijuana said Monday from outside the medical marijuana club
where he said he works. "This is like a reward for being a fighter."Forchion, 41, launched his drive to legalize marijuana in New Jersey in 1997 after he was arrested and charged with possession of the drug with intent to distribute. Since then he has: Spent 17 months in Riverfront State Prison on the distribution conviction and another five months in Burlington County Jail for making pro-marijuana commercials after he was paroled. 
Run for Congress, the state Legislature, the Burlington County
freeholder board and governor as the candidate of the Legalize Marijuana
Party.Staged numerous demonstrations to call attention to his cause, including one "light up" on the floor of the General Assembly and another by the Liberty Bell. It was a battle over child custody, not marijuana, that precipitated his move to California, he said Monday. "That was the straw that broke the camel's back," he said. "The Burlington County Family Court took away my parental rights. "Instead of judging me as a dad, they judged me on what I talk about," he said. Never one to duck an issue, Forchion isn't worried his notoriety as a marijuana advocate could lead to trouble in his new job. California legalized medical marijuana in 1996, but the measure 
has been challenged in court, and some see it as a thinly disguised
move to make the drug available generally.He's working at a club with about 500 members, he said, in Woodland Hills, a short drive from Hollywood. Members come with recommendations from their physicians that they use marijuana, not prescriptions. Forchion said he hopes to bring his wife and three other children 
to California by this summer.He'll miss the people in New Jersey, he said. "But not the bail payments." Reach Richard Pearsall at (856) 486-2465 or mailto:%20rpearsall@courierpostonline.com |
Go west, Weedman: Activist says he's leaving Philly area The Associated Press - 2/21/2006 PEMBERTON, N.J.
- A marijuana activist who tried to change his name to
NJWeedman.com is giving up on the Philadelphia region and moving
to California.Ed Forchion, an activist and perpetually losing political candidate, told The 
Philadelphia Inquirer for Monday's newspapers that he is moving to Los
Angeles."I've had a run of bad luck" he explained. Since December, he has lost the right to visit his daughter, hit a deer with his truck, blew out his transmission and declared himself indigent. He said he'll run a "cannabis" club - and provide spiritual guidance - in the Los Angeles area. His move means New Jersey is losing one of its more unique characters. 
Forchion, a sometime truck driver and construction worker who
lives in Pemberton Township, has become an institution in protest
politics and jailhouse lawyering.He has lit up joints in protest at the Statehouse in Trenton and on federally owned land near the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. After he was arrested for possession with intent to distribute more than 40 pounds of marijuana in 1997, he attempted to seek political asylum in Cuba. It did not work out. At one point, he filmed a pro-pot television commercial while on parole. Authorities 
heard about it and sent him back to prison, claiming he had
violated terms of his release. But a judge agreed with Forchion
and freed him, reasoning that he was merely exercising his free speech
rights.And there was the name-change effort, which Forchion thought might boost his name recognition on ballots. A judge denied it in 2004. A former candidate for pretty much every 
public office in New Jersey, Forchion finished fifth in last
year's gubernatorial race. And he did it spending only a few hundred
dollars in campaign money.The dreadlocked, self-proclaimed "pothead" told the Inquirer that he's going to have copies of his autobiography on hand in California just in case a movie mogul thinks his story would translate to the silver screen. --- |
The Weedman leaveth
By Louis C. Hochman, Special to the Community
News
02/23/2006 The Weedman is hoping the
grass is greener on the other shore.
Ed Forchion - the deadlocked marijuana-legalization activist
possibly best known for amassing more than 9,000 votes in a $370
gubernatorial campaign to forward his so-called "reefer revolution"
- has moved from Pemberton to California. "I had a whole bunch of
things happen to me," Forchion said Tuesday, just days after he left
New Jersey for the Sunshine State. "I had a string of bad luck."Forchion, who once tried to change his name to NJWeedman.com, has often claimed persecution at the hands of authorities who don't like his pro-marijuana 
message. But Forchion said while repeated clashes with
law enforcement have weighed him down, it was a family court matter
that ultimately prompted him to leave town. The self-proclaimed Weedman
said he recently lost visitation rights for one of his children.
That, coupled with recent problems with his truck and "a bunch of
bad luck," left Forchion looking very seriously at a job offer to
manage a facility selling medicinal marijuana in California."I would have went earlier. I got offered this before," Forchion said. "But now I said 'I'm outta here.'" Forchion claims the visitation decision, as well as a slew of other legal problems over the years, comes down to his outspokenness. He said he's been a good father to his two other children. "This is the only thing I talk about, legalization," he said. "But I'm good to my kids. Ask the teachers. My son plays football. My daughter's involved in things. Then, on the other hand, I have one daughter I'm just not allowed to see. It all just got to me." Though marijuana is only legal for medicinal purposes in California, a purchaser only needs a recommendation from a doctor, not a prescription. While that's still a hair away from all-out legalization, Forchion didn't anticipate a future of activism. "There's no need. I don't know what to say. I'm happy," he said. "Last Thursday, I got this job. Eventually, I'll have my family out here. And I won't be treated like a criminal just for talking." Forchion will be back in New Jersey soon enough. He's got a court date March 23, for charges stemming from a confrontation that occurred recently Trenton, when he was distributing pro-legalization flyers. "I'm going to fly in to deal with that and fly out," Forchion said. "By summertime, everything should be good." ©Community News 2006 |
NJWEEDMAN RETURNS
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