MARIJUANA CANDIDATE FINDS PLEA A BARGAIN

MOUNT HOLLY -- Third-party candidate Ed Forchion spent part of the campaign
season behind bars, and he expects to return there soon.

He can't hold elected office, since he'll be sentenced in December for
shipping 25 pounds of marijuana to New Jersey. He pleaded guilty to the
crime on Wednesday.

But Forchion still hopes residents will support him in November when he
seeks a seat on the Burlington County freeholder board and a seat in the
U.S. Congress from the 1st District. Forchion, who is running on the
Legalize Marijuana Party ticket, says a vote for him will be a vote against
anti-marijuana laws.

"Me running for office is just giving other people the opportunity to
participate in my protest," said Forchion, 36, a Rastafarian who says he
uses marijuana for religious reasons, to alleviate back pain, to clear his
mind and to boost creativity. "I would love to get 5,000 or 10,000 people
to vote for me. It would be a symbolic thing."

Forchion, who calls himself "the Weedman," was arrested in Belmar in
November 1997 on charges he was involved in arranging for and picking up a
shipment of 25 pounds of marijuana that came from Arizona to New Jersey,
said John Wynne, a Camden County assistant prosecutor.

Another 15 pounds of the drug was found in Forchion's brother's van as the
two drove away from the pickup spot, Wynne said. He said Forchion faced up
to 20 years in prison, 10 without parole.

But under the plea bargain Forchion accepted Tuesday, he will serve up to
10 years, with his first chance for parole after two years. If a panel of
judges accepts Forchion into an intensive parole program that could include
home visits, curfews and daily drug testing, Forchion could spend as little
as six months in jail, Wynne said.

Similar deals were given to two other defendants in the case -- Forchion's
brother, Russell, and Eric Poole.

By agreeing to the deal, Forchion will also dispose of several other
charges against him: that he possessed 15 pounds of marijuana in
Collingswood this year, and that he stole money off a gambling table in an
Atlantic City casino and bought a gun he knew was stolen in Lakewood, both
in 1996, Wynne said.

Those weren't Forchion's only run-ins with the law. The former truck driver
has been arrested several times for smoking joints during public protests,
once during a session of the state Assembly.

Forchion, who took the plea deal on the second day of his trial, said he
couldn't resist the agreement. "I pleaded guilty, but I feel like a
winner," said Forchion, who is free on $65,000 bail. "It was so close to
total victory that I feel good about it."

In addition to sparing himself serious jail time, Forchion, who acted as
his own lawyer, got his chance to address a jury on the subject of
marijuana laws.

He asked the jurors to put the laws on trial, finding him innocent if they
decided the policies were unethical. His main argument was that the
government has wrongly classified marijuana as one of America's most
dangerous drugs, claiming it has a high potential for abuse, has no
acceptable medical use and is considered unsafe.

Since 1996, he said, eight states have at least partially rejected those
beliefs by making marijuana legal when prescribed for medical use.

"The law is a lie, and it is being enforced," said Forchion, who had
planned to call witnesses, including a university professor and a state
chemist. "I want to present the truth."

Wynne admits that Forchion's defense strategy prompted him to offer a
fairly lenient deal.

"He was representing himself, and when that happens, sometimes juries feel
sympathy because's he's not a lawyer," Wynne said.

As part of the deal, Forchion was allowed to speak to the jury again before
they were dismissed. He says he polled jurors and found that at least five
of them were on his side. "I would have got a hung jury," he said.

But Wynne says it's unlikely jurors would have disregarded the facts and
found Forchion innocent. He said they seemed concerned that the marijuana
could have ended up in the hands of children if Forchion sold it.

Forchion, who is married and has four children, says he will do what he can
to keep his time in prison to a minimum, including taking a break from
smoking marijuana during his probation. But he isn't promising to give up
the drug forever.

"I have always felt like I, and I alone, control my body," he said. "By me
signing this plea, I am giving up my right to regulate my own body. When I
get that back, I probably will use marijuana again."