Robert Forchion’s highly publicized trial began May 1 and could lead to sweeping changes in Jersey’s medicinal marijuana laws, or, he could be convicted and face serious prison time stemming from his arrest near Willingboro on April 1, 2010, about four months after Jon Corzine signed the state’s Compassionate Use Act into law as one of his final acts as governor. But the law did not go into effect until July of 2010, and implementation continues to lag during Gov. Chris Christie’s administration, so in the eyes of the state NJWeedman was, and still is, a dope fiend who had a pound of Cali bud in his car.
NJWeedman will appear on Trentonian TV at 7:30 this morning before he drives his Weedmobile back down to Burlington County Superior Court in Mount Holly. Watch the live interview HERE.
“One of the reasons I came to Los Angeles was because when I’m in Los Angeles I’m treated like a medical marijuana patient, not a criminal like I am in New Jersey,” NJWeedman says in one of his many YouTube videos that hit the air in the weeks leading up to his trial in Mount Holly. He held up a medicinal marijuana card issued by Kaisser-Permanente and then held up X-rays of his right leg that he says show the C-cell bone tumors low on his right femur near the knee.
The Burlington County native with dredlocks is acting as his own attorney and argues that he should be found innocent because of jury nullification, meaning he believes Jersey’s marijuana laws are unjust, not his actions. Yesterday he told The Trentonian that Judge Charles Delehey barred him from telling the jury of 7 women and 5 men — 11 whites, one black — that the state’s Compassionate Use Act was signed before his arrest but didn’t go into effect until a few months after. Two of the jurors are nurses.
The judge ruled in January that determining the state’s pot laws is “not the jury’s function.”
But NJWeedman still tells The Trentonian that “the law is wrong, not me.”
For months NJWeedman has said he needs just one juror to understand his pain, his plight, his need to smoke pot as a viable treatment against the bone tumors that Dr. Steven Fenichel is set to talk about today. NJWeedman said he thinks he’s struck a nerve in at least a few “sympathetic” jurors. He said he would appeal a guilty verdict.
“I’ve had this happen to me before when I was in New Jersey, in prison,” NJWeedman said in a video. “It took eight months to get taken care of, under horrible conditions. In California, I not only use medical marijuana, but it’s been shown time and time again to shrink the size of my tumors, reduce the size of their growth, and doctors here have no issues with me using medical marijuana.”
New Jersey’s Compassionate Care Act does not list tumors as one of the reasons to be eligible for medicinal pot. “There is a listing for cancer,” NJWeedman said, “but my condition, luckily for me, has been benign. Each time I’ve been tested (the tumors) have been benign, but they have to be removed, and medical marijuana does work.”
During the trial, NJWeedman said the prosecution has called him “a charlatain” whose use of bone tumor X-rays are part of his “gimmick.”
But the defendant said the part that hurts most is exposing his kids to the cancer Dr. Fenichel will say continues to ravage his right leg.
“At the end of the day I’m Ed Forchion,” he said. “I talk to my kids as Ed Forchion, and I’m in this trial as Ed Forchion. ... It’s tough to bring my kids to court to hear I have cancer. They’ve heard me refer to them as tumors and lumps.”
Source: The Trentonian
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