EDITOR'S NOTE: Legalizing recreational marijuana is being considered in New Jersey.

The most recent Rutgers-Eagleton poll shows public support for legalizing recreational marijuana in New Jersey is 58 percent - the highest it's ever been - with 39 percent opposed.

Although Gov. Chris Christie has said he would not sign a bill legalizing recreational marijuana, both the state Senate and Assembly are working on legislation.

This is the third in a three-part series that will explore the issue of legalizing recreational marijuana and its potential effects on Sussex County and the surrounding area. The series looks at the economic, public health and criminal justice impact legalization could have. All three parts can be viewed at www.njherald.com.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Legalizing recreational marijuana is being seriously considered in New Jersey.

The most recent Rutgers-Eagleton poll shows public support for legalizing recreational marijuana in New Jersey is 58 percent -- the highest it's ever been -- with 39 percent opposed.

Although Gov. Chris Christie has said he would not sign a bill legalizing recreational marijuana, both the state Senate and Assembly are working on legislation.

This is the second in a three-part series that will explore the issue of legalizing recreational marijuana and its potential effects on Sussex County and the surrounding area. The series will look at the economic, public health and criminal justice impact legalization could have.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: A bill has been introduced in the New Jersey Assembly to legalize recreational marijuana, allowing adults over the age of 21 to possess, use and grow marijuana.

The state Senate had a bill in the last legislative session that never advanced. The bill's primary sponsor, state Sen. Nicholas Scutari, D-22nd Dist., has said he will reintroduce legislation soon.

A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing held in November 2015 offered advocates of legalization a chance to present their side and another hearing will be held for those opposed.

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Regarding the May 29 point-counterpoint relating to drug use between Elaine Pozycki and Jeffrey Miron ("At Issue: Is N.J. winning war on heroin?," I fully support Miron's view that drugs should be legalized. It is absurd to continue this silly crusade against what people want to do.The government should let people make their own decisions on what they consume, good or bad.

Pozycki's slant is we should not only continue prohibitions against drug use but increase laws against people's personal desires, as if the government is their parent and they are children. It is apparent, though, that Pozycki is part of the massive "anti-drug" industry that has grown up around the use of opiates. In effect, people like Pozycki are in league with their so-called "opposite" number, the drug cartels, in not wanting drugs legalized. Legalization would destroy their respective livelihoods.

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TRENTON - New Jersey's famous marijuana activist has claimed responsibility for putting out pamphlets this week that encouraged prospective jurors in a murder trial to vote their conscience and "acquit, even when the evidence proves the defendant 'did it.'"

Ed Forchion, better known as NJ Weedman, doesn't need another target on his back.

But the marijuana legalization activist says he has been forced to act following a drug raid last month on his capital city business.

"I'm getting ready to put on another William Penn trial," said Forchion, referring to the prominent Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania who was arrested in 1670 because his religious preaching ran contrary to the Church of England.

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Advocates Say Recreational Use Would Pay Off.

New Jersey would gain at least $300 million a year in taxes if it followed the lead of four other states and legalized marijuana for recreational use, according to a report released Tuesday by New Jersey Policy Perspective and New Jersey United for Marijuana Reform.

The revenue projection is based on imposing an eventual 25 percent sales tax on consumers, who would have to be at least 21 years old.

The organizations represent a coalition of advocacy groups working for legalization in New Jersey. They analyzed available data on the number of people who purchase the drug illegally in New Jersey, and examined the experiences of states that recently approved legalization.

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NEPTUNE - Gov. Chris Christie addressed more than 200 medical and law-enforcement professionals about opioid and opiate addiction, treatment and recovery Thursday, joining a dais that included a pharmaceutical manufacturer, a Massachusetts police chief and an addiction specialist.

Christie made it personal.

The governor retold a story - about his law school friend, now dead after an apparent overdose on opiates complicated by alcohol - that went viral in November.

He said his friend - whom he has never named - was at the head of his law school study group and the first to find success after graduation, and nobody could have foreseen his descent into prescription drug abuse and the implosion of his personal and professional lives.

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TRENTON - Police say summonses charging Ed Forchion for smoking marijuana in city council chambers last year were signed by officials the day following the incident and sent to him via "regular mail."

But Forchion's attorney says that claim doesn't make sense because police must have a record showing they served a complaint before a warrant can be issued for failing to appear in court.

"You can't send it regular mail; they might as well just put it in the shredder because it has the same legal effect," Forchion's attorney Ed Heyburn said. "They either deliver it in person, or they send it certified mail and someone has to sign for it. When they go before a judge and request a warrant, they'll be asked to show when they served the complaint."

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FACT I'M NEITHER PROUD NOR ASHAMED OF: I used to smoke a lot of marijuana. I was pretty much high all the time from September 1990 (when I was a freshman in college) until June of 1999, at which point I decided I didn't want to be high all the time. And really: I was high all the time. I also managed to graduate college, write a book, win journalism awards, meet my future wife, land full time jobs, and be a decent member of society.

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TRENTON - On Nov. 5, 2015, the local businessman known as NJ Weedman shocked public officials when he lit up a joint and smoked his precious marijuana inside City Council Chambers at Trenton City Hall.

This week, Ed Forchion received summonses in the mail charging him with smoking inside a public building in violation of a city ordinance and smoking in public in violation of state law.

Trenton Police Capt. Edelmiro Gonzalez, who was one of the many witnesses who saw Forchion smoke inside City Hall, signed the summonses against Forchion, according to Trenton Police Lt. Stephen Varn.

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TRENTON - Two charges filed by a city police officer against Edward Forchion, aka NJ Weedman, may go up in smoke.

The criminal activity allegedly occurred when Forchion appeared in a video that was shot outside his restaurant on May 10 and was subsequently posted to social media. In the clip, Trenton cops are at his restaurant when the weed advocate repeatedly calls officer Herbert Flowers a "pedophile" and a "big boy who (expletive) with little girls."

In the video, Flowers appears to laugh off the verbal assault and at one point puts his arms in the arm with a smile, responding "Yep, you said it."

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A marijuana legalization supporting friend frequently delivers this insight.

"It's a plant, L.A. People should not be arrested for smoking a plant," she says.

Her potted observations includes the same allowance for Cannabis oil, butter, gummy bears, coffee, etc. Her observation attracts a certain appreciation except for the fact that smoking such plant remains a violation of New Jersey law.

Now, if people want to smoke that plant in public or sell such green produce behind the guise of religious temples and fruit smoothies store frontage, then that's the chance they take.

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Congratulations to the Press on its recent series of articles concerning New Jersey's growing heroin epidemic. They follow the Press' past editorials opposing legalization of recreational marijuana.

Convincing Democrat legislators in Trenton to abandon their lust for marijuana-generated tax dollars would be a life-saving decision. It is actually blood money and should never be used to redistribute New Jersey's wealth.

Why state legislators led by Sen. Nick Scutari, D-Middlesex-Union-Somerset, are anxious to entice our young into lives that include narcotics is a mystery. This, is in spite of medical professionals and statistics that prove experimentation with marijuana leads to heroin and other hard-core addiction.

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Henry Gunther was an unhappy man, according to stories told years later by the BBC and The Baltimore Sun. He was unhappy for good reason, as well: It was World War I, he was fighting on the Western Front, and he had recently been demoted back to the rank of private.

But the worst was yet to come for Gunther.

At 10:59 a.m. on November 11, 1918, outside the village of Villedevant-Chaumont, north of Verdun, Gunther, acting on his own and despite the shouts of his fellow soldiers, ran with his bayonet in hand and single-handedly attempted to attack a heavily fortified German position. In fact, not only did his fellow soldiers tell him to stop, the Germans also yelled at him to stop.

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Robert Edward "Ed" Forchion Jr. created the persona NJ Weedman shortly after emerging in the late 1990s on his way to becoming one of New Jersey's best known marijuana legalization advocates.

During his two-decades of advocacy for the legalization of marijuana, he's been on the front pages of newspapers, in jail cells and courtrooms, and he's run for elected office on all levels of government.

Forchion has used marijuana since he was a teen, but in 2001 he says he was diagnosed with tumors in his knees and shoulders, which later become cancerous. He uses marijuana medically too, he maintains.

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TRENTON - Less than 30 hours after his East State Street businesses were raided by police, Ed Forchion was back at the Joint, rolling a joint and vowing to beat county prosecutors in court.

"They just gave me another platform to continue my goal," Forchion told The Trentonian at 10:30 p.m. Thursday, about two hours after his release from jail. "This is exactly what happened in Burlington County. I beat those prosecutors, and I'll beat the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office too. They're on the wrong side of history."

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TRENTON - Prosecutors say complaints from the community regarding constant foot traffic in and out of Ed Forchion's businesses sparked a two-month investigation that resulted in his property being raided Wednesday afternoon.

Prosecutors also say they received information from multiple sources that Forchion, a pot legalization activist known as NJ Weedman, was distributing marijuana from out of the premises.

The Mercer County Narcotics Task Force raided Forchion's businesses, which includes a restaurant, religious sanctuary and tobacco shop, on East State Street and allegedly seized more than $19,000 in marijuana.

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(AP) - A New Jersey marijuana advocate dubbed NJ Weedman has been arrested again on pot charges after police raided his restaurant and cannabis temple.

Ed Forchion was arrested Wednesday along with 10 other people after a raid of his business across the street from Trenton City Hall.

Forchion has spent time in prison on previous drug charges. He wasn't immediately available to comment.

Forchion opened NJ Weedman's Joint and an attached cannabis church last year. He sued Trenton police last month, saying they infringed on his religious rights after shutting down the cannabis temple for operating too late.

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TRENTON - The authorities raided NJWeedman's Joint on East State Street Wednesday afternoon.

According to police sources the narcotics task force raided the restaurant around 4 p.m. A number of police were seen going in and out of the building, and several people were detained by police.

Social media posts have popped up with the hashtag #FreeNJWeedman and friends of Ed Forchion, better known as NJ Weedman, were saying that Forchion, proprietor of the shop, was among those arrested. In addition to running the restaurant and temple, Forchion is a well-known marijuana legalization activist.

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Dear Gov. Christie my old pal - we will be puffing outside your office on 4/20 at 4:20 p.m. Take this as a personal invitation from me: NJWeedman.

April 20 - The Stoner Holiday is next week and once again here in New Jersey there is a planned civil disobedience demonstration on the steps of the state capitol as a direct challenge to you Gov. Christie and your prohibitionist policies. http://tinyurl.com/CapitolSmokeout - - I personally plan on firing one up in your honor celebrating your demise at the Presidential level, don't stand to my left unless you want to see what you've erroneously and naively railed about. Try it i think youll like it.

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