Pubdate: Sun, 09 Apr 2000 Source: Ocean County Observer (NJ) Copyright: 2000 Ocean County Observer Contact: (732) 557-5758 Address: 8 Robbins Street, Toms River, NJ 08753 Website: http://www.injersy.com/observer/ Author: Don Bennett, Staff Writer STILL GRAZING IN GRASS DESPITE THREAT OF JAIL TOMS RIVER -- Pot provider Edward Forchion says his efforts to legalize the use of marijuana may send him to prison for the rest of his life under New Jersey's "three strikes and you're in" law. "I'm a capitalist, a marijuana provider," he admitted, explaining that marijuana that costs $300 in Arizona brings $1,500 in New Jersey. "No one has the authority to regulate my body. Where's that in the Constitution?" "The law made something created by God illegal," he added in an interview Friday. Forchion, 35, of Browns Mills, said he smokes grass daily because it makes him feel good. He said it makes him feel better than the Paxil and Zoloft he had been prescribed. His crusade to legalize the use of the plant has prompted him to run for Congress, the state Assembly, and Camden County freeholder. He even formed his own Legalize Marijuana Party. Now he says he'll run for Congress in the 1st District again, if he is out of jail. The petitions are all signed, but he won't turn them in until the last minute. Why? Because newspapers and other media will stop using his letters and letting him on the air if they have to give equal time to his opponents, he explained. It's his views about marijuana that he blames for the recent "zeal" by the state to prosecute him. His journey to a life behind bars could start here, where there's an effort to throw him out of the Pre-Trial Intervention (PTI) program that spared him criminal prosecution on charges he had a stolen double-barrel Colt .45 in his truck on Route 70 in Lakewood on April 18, 1996. A state trooper pulled Forchion over to check the emissions coming from the truck he was driving. The trooper smelled other emissions when he spoke with Forchion, according to court records. It was pot. Forchion admitted smoking it. The lawman found the gun when he searched the truck. Forchion, a cross-country truck driver, said he bought the gun from another truck driver for protection. It had been stolen from a man in Marion, Ind., in December 1994. Executive Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor John Doran blocked Forchion's admission into PTI, citing his "cavalier" attitude about the drug charge and having the stolen gun. His attitude hasn't changed. He says he'll plead guilty to a disorderly persons charge of having marijuana in Mercer County after being arrested for lighting up at the Statehouse. "I got on the front page of the Trentonian and the AP picked it up. It's worth the fine," he said. Doran also noted when he blocked Forchion from PTI that he was also charged with stealing seven $1,000 chips from Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. Forchion eventually agreed to repay the casino, and Doran consented to his entering the PTI program. Superior Court Judge Peter J. Giovine admitted him on March 6, 1997, ordering him to stay out of trouble for three years and the weapons charges would be dropped. Forchion was arrested five times after that, and before February, when the effort to throw him out of the PTI program and make him stand trial on the weapons charge began. It wasn't only the arrests, it was his failure to tell PTI officials about them, that may lead him to face the weapons charges in court. Forchion claims he reported one of the arrests to his PTI contact. Two of those Camden County arrests were for having large amounts of marijuana, 40 pounds in one case, 15 in another, he said. He's fighting those charges, too, but if convicted of all three he believes he'll be sentenced to life as a repeat offender. A hearing on the motion to kick him out of PTI -- scheduled for Friday before Giovine -- was postponed because Gerald Boswell, the public defender appointed to represent him, could not go to court because of a bad back. In Camden County, Forchion says, he'll represent himself and try to get a jury to nullify a drug law that increases the penalty for having large amounts of marijuana. That's the case involving 40 pounds of marijuana. The other one, involving 15 pounds of it, is "bogus," Forchion claims, saying a man he knows got arrested with the pot and said it was his. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea