May 21–28, 1998
pretzel logic
One Toke, One Vote
It's a good cause, but the candidate's a little fuzzy on the details.
The first question a lot of people will ask about Edward Forchion, candidate for Camden County freeholder, is, "What's he smoking?"
It is a question that I normally ask of anyone running for the Board of Freeholders.
Why are you doing this?
What are you smoking?
The answer in Forchion's case is easy, and one he readily admits.
He smokes pot.
Which is no surprise, considering that Forchion is running under the green-leafed banner of the Legalize Marijuana Party, an entity, shockingly enough, of his own creation.
Forchion's candidacy is yet another good news/bad news conundrum.
The good news is that someone running for public office is calling for a change in the way our society deals with marijuana. The bad news is that it is Forchion and his tie-dyed band of pierced political pollyannas.
It is a misty day at the front end of our two-week monsoon season and Forchion and his band are milling about Wiggins Waterfront Park, a grassy knoll sloping downward from the Aquarium promenade down to the Delaware.
Under a tent, a collective of Jerry Garcia wannabes twang out a clashing cacophony of highly amplified space music as Forchion's political supporters, all 20 of them, groove and toke and enjoy the mid-day spritz.
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Unlike most politicians, he is not shy to acknowledge that fact.
"I have a real interest in legalizing marijuana," says Forchion, wearing a marijuana-leaf-emblazoned baseball cap and a T-shirt with the message, "Marijuana: It's OK, Just Illegal."
Forchion and his brother were arrested last November for transporting 45 pounds of pot into New Jersey from Arizona. They were the first arrested under New Jersey Gov. Christy Whitman's tough new anti-drug law. Edward says he and his brother face 20 years in prison and a possible $300,000 fine.
"There's no support for that kind of penalty," says the 33-year-old Forchion. "The man who killed my grandfather when I was 15 will probably get out of jail before I do if I am convicted and sentenced to the full term."
Forchion, whose campaign staff car is a beat-up black van, points to a table with a water cooler bottle partly filled with coins and paper money, and says that he is having no trouble attracting people who agree with his position.
"There's about $200 in there right now," he says proudly. "We have about $1,500, $1,600 total."
Forchion's campaign brochure epitomizes his effort.
The only semi-cogent information is a reprint from the Web page of a group called the Fully Informed Jury Association Inc., which argues that the Constitution allows juries to overturn bad law on a case-by-case basis.
The rest of the flyer contains newspaper accounts of his drug-fueled misadventures, the margins decorated with drawings of marijuana leaves and his scrawled opinions of drug laws, including the statement "Marijuana Doesn't Fit, You've Got To Acquit."
The flyer's cover, however, offers the best hint about why they call it dope.
The big red number 2 after November is replaced with a markered-over number 3.
"When we first did this, I didn't know the date of the election," says Forchion. "I thought it was Nov. 2. I later found out it is Nov. 3."
One electoral quality Forchion does possess is persistence.
Aside from his arrest for possession, Forchion was recently arrested for disturbing the peace. But he worked really hard at it, trying not once, but twice.
In a display never before seen in the annals of New Jersey politics, Forchion decided to make a point by lighting up at two major seats of power in Camden County.
On Tuesday, April 28, Forchion sparked a joint at the Camden County Democratic Party headquarters. This occurred after Forchion was thwarted in his efforts to get arrested by smoking two joints at Congressman Rob Andrews' Haddon Heights office one day earlier.
Over the wailings of the would-be Grateful Dead, Forchion says that he went as far as calling the police after puffing the first joint at Andrews' office and, waiting for the law, lit up again.
The police, however, never showed.
Being a quick study, Forchion says he changed his tactic the next day at the party office.
He started banging on the window until the cops arrived and charged him with disorderly conduct.
A former ATF agent, who now works for the Camden County Parks and Recreation Department, sits in his van and looks on with bemused bewilderment.
"Don't want to talk about my personal feelings," he says, his voice cutting through the thick haze of pot smoke that fills the park.
"I don't like it," he says of Forchion's stance, without getting specific. "I don't think marijuana should be legal."
Even so, the former agent, who does not want to give his name, says that even if he were still carrying a badge and a gun, he wouldn't arrest any of the demonstrators brazenly smoking dope in the open.
"What's the point?" he asks. "Who are they harming but themselves?"
Though a large percentage of Forchion's force on this misty day is either too young to vote or registered outside his district, there are a few seeds of political promise planted.
Marc Gulizio, a scraggly bearded 19-year-old from Gloucester City, is involved in his first political campaign.
"It's a good cause," he says, before launching into a discussion with his friend Leah Hall about the merits of legal hemp.
"One acre of hemp grows as much fiber as four acres of trees," says Gulizio.
"I thought it was three acres of trees," says Hall.
"No, it's four," says Gulizio, who, like everyone else at the rally, speaks without benefit of any real statistics, which is probably the most disappointing aspect of Forchion's campaign.
When asked for information to corroborate his comments that pot isn't bad for you and that it actually has some medical benefits, Forchion points to the table which includes his flyer and a copy of Why Marijuana Should Be Legal, an informative and well-annotated pamphlet by one of the editors of High Times magazine.
Other than that, Forchion speaks in broad, pleasant platitudes, offering nothing while sounding great.
Wait a minute.
This guy sounds like the perfect freeholder after all.
