COUNTY'S 'WEEDMAN' RELEASED FROM STATE PRISON

Perennial political candidate and marijuana legalization advocate Ed
"njweedman" Forchion has been released from state prison.

Forchion, a Pemberton Township resident, was sentenced in December 2000 to
10 years in prison for conspiring to distribute 40 pounds of marijuana.

He was released from Bayside State Prison in Leesburg, Cumberland County,
on Tuesday and has entered a program in which he must refrain from smoking
marijuana and must find a job. He also must provide regular urine samples
to demonstrate that he is staying clean.

Forchion said yesterday that he would not smoke marijuana while he is
enrolled in the program for the next 18 months.

He declined to say whether he would smoke marijuana after he completes the
program.

Forchion is a former truck driver who has been an outspoken advocate of
legalizing marijuana. A professed observer of the Rastafarian faith,
Forchion has said he smoked marijuana for religious reasons as well as to
ease back pain.

"I haven't changed my religious views, but if I smoke pot, they will throw
me back in prison," Forchion said yesterday in a telephone interview from
his home in the Browns Mills section of the township, where he resides with
his wife and three children.

Forchion was charged with helping his brother and another man pick up a
shipment of 40 pounds of marijuana at Bellmawr Industrial Park on Nov. 24,
1997. The marijuana was shipped from a supplier in Arizona via Federal Express.

Forchion was tried on charges of distribution and possession of marijuana
in October 2000, but pleaded guilty to those charges and two unrelated
charges during his trial.

He tried to withdraw his plea prior to being sentenced because he said he
was barred from using a defense strategy called "jury nullification" at his
trial. Jury nullification is the hope that a jury decides not to enforce a
law out of sympathy for the defendant.

He said he has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia
against the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, challenging the decision.

Forchion said he refrained from smoking marijuana while he was in prison
but did write a book, "njweedman: Fair Trial Denied," which he is trying to
sell to a publisher.

"The whole time I was in prison, I didn't smoke marijuana," Forchion said.
"There's plenty of marijuana in prison and I decided I wasn't going to
smoke it."

Because Forchion has been convicted of a crime, state law bars him from
running for political office.

He ran unsuccessfully against U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, D-1st of Haddon
Heights, in 1998 and 2000 on the Legalize Marijuana Party ticket. He also
lost when he ran for a seat on the Burlington County Board of Freeholders
in 2000.

Forchion also ran unsuccessfully in 1999 for an 8th District state Assembly
seat and for a seat on the Camden County freeholder board.