GO WEST, WEEDMAN: ACTIVIST SAYS HE'S LEAVING PHILLY AREA

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.