REEFER MADNESS? HIGH TIMES OVER FOR NJ WEEDMAN!

New Jersey voters will have almost a dozen choices for governor this fall,
but none of the candidates cuts a figure quite like Ed Forchion.

Forchion is the dreadlocked Rastafarian free-speech activist better known
as the "NJ Weedman."

Like always, he's running on the Marijuana Party ticket.

Slight problem: "The Weedman has become the Weedlessman," he tells me. "I
haven't smoked a joint in almost three months."

Not only is Ed not actively campaigning, but for the first time in years,
he's not planning any future run.

He might even cut his hair.

The media missed the news about the Weedman's going straight, but it's not
exactly their fault.

Most of the political reporters in the state have spent the last week
fretting over Doug Forrester's campaign finance fiasco and Jon Corzine's
expensive love life.

Ed used to hold news conferences on the Statehouse steps whenever he felt
his right to talk about toking was being trampled - which was often.

These days, you have to catch him on the road on his mobile.

The Weedman's got a new mission.

This one's about money and, maybe, making things up to his wife and kids.

Talking about toking

Those who think he's just a loudmouth loser miss the point.

For starters, Ed's the most lucid stoner I've ever met. Even judges who've
ruled on his self-fought cases give him props for polished presentations
and sound legal arguments.

It was never as much about pot for Ed as it was the right to talk about a
subject others would prefer he not.

Sort of like the military moms protesting outside President Bush's ranch?

"During the buildup to the war, when the President was lying about weapons
of mass destruction," Ed explains, "I was in jail for making commercials
about marijuana."

Every time he got busted speaking out, he raised his voice a little louder.

He distrusts cops but came to respect the civil court system, where, Ed
says, "you can get vengeance without being a vigilante."

When the parolee got thrown in jail for proselytizing about pot, he sued
and won, arguing that the real crime was locking him up to shut him up.

When New Jersey passed a law requiring parolees to submit DNA to a criminal
database, he sued and won, arguing that it amounted to an after-the-fact
punishment.

Other stunts fell flat, such as his bid to legally change his name to
NJWeedman.com. A judge said the name would promote a criminal enterprise.

Ed knows about crime. In 1997, he got busted hooking his brother up with a
dealer who shipped 40 pounds of pot to Jersey by FedEx.

Ed took a plea, but still got 10 years.

It cost him his truck-driving career, a house and his place in the middle
class. Now, he wants back in.

Ramblin' on

It gets old getting arrested every time you talk. And, expensive.

Last year, the chronically underemployed Weedman got a job as a courier
making $600 a week, only to lose it after his bosses saw him protesting
Gov. McGreevey on TV.

He's still fighting a federal case over lighting up at the Liberty Bell.

But after two recent arrests for campaigning in Trenton and Seaside
Heights, Ed says he's sick of suing.

"I'm a patriotic pothead," he insists, "but I'm tired of being a one-man
show. It gets old."

Other activists think he's "a wacko." And ultimately, either he failed or
"the courts failed me."

This spring, Ed fixed his driving record and got another trucking job. I
caught up with him by phone hauling bottled water from Maine to Allentown.

It's good money, and there's plenty of it to be made.

With a relative's help, he put a down payment on an 18-wheeler.

Driving a big rig brings big risk, responsibility and random drug tests. So
he doesn't dare smoke.

"Imagine if I had an accident," he says. "Imagine the headline: 'The
Weedman kills driving high.' "

Anyway, now that he's trucking again, Ed wants to focus on work and repay
his wife, who juggled two jobs to support the family and his habits.

"My daughter just turned 10," Ed explains. "Her whole life, I've been the
Weedman and we've been poor."

Maybe if he keeps a low profile as "just Ed" for a while, the Forchions'
fortunes will improve.