So NJ is going to Legalize Marijuana! Will Weedman be allowed to see his daughter now?
New Jersey on Monday Feb 23., 2009 is scheduled to consider a significant revision of its marijuana laws. Where's the NJ Weedman, frontrunner of this movement and founder of the Legalize Marijuana Party? He's bitterly monitoring these events in self-imposed political exile in legislatively liberal California, anxiously awaiting New Jersey's reconciliation with the unreasonable reality its laws imposed on himself and other marijuana users and advocates.
THE POLITICS OF POT AND PARENTAGE
It began with love: love of knowledge, love of freedom, and love of children, generally and specifically.
Mr. Ed Forchion's journey began as a self-educated Seeker. Taught to question and to have faith, he had a series of spiritual revelations that coalesced into a personal philosophy ultimately based on Rastafarianism, which include a myriad of personal choices quite outside mainstream American values while yet respecting most deeply many of the fundamental values that make America what it is: Freedom of thought, freedom of religion, and freedom of political/expression.
In 1996, Ajanea was joyfully born to Ed and his girlfriend, Linda. Ajanea was a dream come true... IS a dream come true, for both her parents. However only one of them is allowed to express this joy at her side.
Do parents have rights to political expression? View as many aspects as you can of the events that surround Ed, Linda and Ajanea's circumstances, and then ask yourself that question, among hopefully many others.
In November 1997 Ed was charged with possession and intent to sell a quantity of marijuana. In a steadfast determination to keep true to his religion and his personal ideals, which strongly included the concepts of American respect for freedom of choice and speech, he attempted the almost unheard of OPEN ADVOCATION of Jury Nullification as a defense: a little-known and even less-used legal concept wherein the charges are deemed in and of themselves to be unconstitutional. In other words, whether guilty as charged or not, the law the defendant is charged with breaking, is, in itself, not consistent with American values. Ed's plan: present the truth about marijuana to the Jury and ask the Jury to decide if the law itself was wrong. ( )
Over a personal complication involving a different relationship, Linda and Ed split up. Linda's pain translated itself into anger, and a refusal to allow Ed to interact with his daughter. According to Ed, she simply "became a scorned woman." Linda discovered that Ed, not contrary with his beliefs, had a relationship and a child with another woman. Her reaction was to present Ed with an ultimatum: entirely renounce his other daughter and her mother, or renounce his relationship with Linda. Ed could not in good conscience simply walk away from his daughter... either one of them.
During the years of his relationship with Linda, Ed used marijuana in accordance with the terms of his religion, for inner spiritual journeys. Linda was well accustomed to this and wholly accepting, although she herself rarely participated. However, abruptly she withheld their daughter from his visits, and forced him to petition the court for her compliance, where she constantly cited his use of marijuana, and his religion, as evidence that he should be denied access to Ajanea.
As Ed's criminal trial proceeded, he attended his daughter as best he was allowed. Eventually he made a plea bargain for a greatly reduced sentence and charges, but was imprisoned from December 1, 2000 through April 2, 2002, whereupon he was released into "ISP" [Intensive Supervision Program], a supervised parole program, involving rigorous standards of behaviour including impositions of curfew, drug testing, drug/alcohol rehabilitation/orientation programs in addition to regular reporting. Employment and family participation in the program was also required.
Ed's criminal proceedings had progressed in high profile; journalists in various media, as well as the public, paid a lot of attention to the unique aspect of jury nullification, and especially in its application to these particular laws prohibiting the use of marijuana. To many he was a martyr and a freedom fighter. Certainly his actions and voice became the focal point that allowed the movement for non-violent reform to organize to the point where the issue is at long last before the New Jersey state legislature.
In a perversion of the truth, while on the one hand his highly-admired and public pursuit of justice of basing his defense on the grounds of the invalid nature of the laws themselves, at the same time, that same admiration and fame, in the form of further clippings and media documentation, was presented and accepted as evidence of inappropriate behavior for a parent, a threat somehow to Ajanea. In a heartbreaking ruling, his relationship with Ajanea was reduced to a mockery: supervised visitations: meetings between a father and a toddler tiny daughter in a severe, institutional gunmetal grey world under the close eye of a matron seemingly bred for the purpose of robotic, rather than maternal, behavior. Cruel and unusual punishment indeed for expressing his political beliefs.
In specific, upon his release on a Wednesday, the very following Monday he pursued the ability to re-establish his ties with Ajanea. Having become only stronger in his personal convictions and philosophies, he nonetheless complied with all the terms of supervised parole that accompanied his release; without fail, he passed each drug test and conducted himself in all manners consistent with the terms of his parole and the behavior of law-abiding citizens.
But he challenged the laws that required him to forego marijuana. He challenged them in his heart, in his head, and in his actions... in the way Americans are told is part of their birthright from their first breath: he openly protested the ruling on the courthouse steps in the week following the imposition of only supervised visitation. Given the media and public's attention on the jury nullification aspect of Ed's original criminal proceedings, the press and society's eye once again made much of this event.
Mr. Tim Bartlett was Mr. Forchion's parole officer. Mr. Bartlett took exception to Mr. Forchion's position on the marijuana laws.. and specifically, he took exception to the Mr. Forchion's highly public stance against those laws.
Mr. Bartlett perceived... insisted... that by this public speech, Mr. Forchion was advocating drug use, and as Mr. Forchion's conviction related to "drugs" and marijuana specifically, to continue to demonstrate no remorse for his original "crime" in such a manner, by supporting reform of those selfsame laws, Mr. Forchion was promoting his "crime."
On these grounds, he was able to obtain a warrant to remand Mr. Forchion back to jail. The frontrunner for reform of laws... laws which are now being re-examined for their severity, on the same grounds that Mr. Forchion has been pleading... was forcibly incarcerated yet again simply for voicing his opinion. He again served time from August 19, 2002 until January 24, 2003 for saying Legalize Marijuana.
So in what would become yet another escalating factor, he not only didn't get to see his daughter but lost his freedom yet again. For exercising his right to free speech.
It's a given: Mr. Forchion had not loved knowledge, freedom and his daughter through all those books, years and tears in order to be remanded back into jail for exercising his rights of representing masses of people who agreed with his certainty that the marijuana laws were unjustly harsh and imposed restrictions unfair to legal adults. Again representing himself, Mr. Forchion sought relief from his jail cell, legal relief and literal relief. Such base violations of his basic American right to freedom of speech and self-expression could not be tolerated, but there is only one avenue available to remedy that injustice: The Federal Court of the United States. And there he filed, in pro se, in the District of New Jersey, a Writ of Habeus Corpus. With his daughter and his spirituality and his convictions in the truth as his motivations once again.
And media attention, previously alert, became intense. The next development: against all odds, the case would be heard. Scrutiny became extreme. The verdict: MR. FORCHION PREVAILS, the US Federal Court supported Mr. Forchion in each of his actions, noting without exception his right to free speech, and ordering his immediate release with this ruling: FORCHION vs NEW JERSEY
It began with love: love of knowledge, love of freedom, and love of children, generally and specifically.
Mr. Ed Forchion's journey began as a self-educated Seeker. Taught to question and to have faith, he had a series of spiritual revelations that coalesced into a personal philosophy ultimately based on Rastafarianism, which include a myriad of personal choices quite outside mainstream American values while yet respecting most deeply many of the fundamental values that make America what it is: Freedom of thought, freedom of religion, and freedom of political/expression.
In 1996, Ajanea was joyfully born to Ed and his girlfriend, Linda. Ajanea was a dream come true... IS a dream come true, for both her parents. However only one of them is allowed to express this joy at her side.
Do parents have rights to political expression? View as many aspects as you can of the events that surround Ed, Linda and Ajanea's circumstances, and then ask yourself that question, among hopefully many others.
In November 1997 Ed was charged with possession and intent to sell a quantity of marijuana. In a steadfast determination to keep true to his religion and his personal ideals, which strongly included the concepts of American respect for freedom of choice and speech, he attempted the almost unheard of OPEN ADVOCATION of Jury Nullification as a defense: a little-known and even less-used legal concept wherein the charges are deemed in and of themselves to be unconstitutional. In other words, whether guilty as charged or not, the law the defendant is charged with breaking, is, in itself, not consistent with American values. Ed's plan: present the truth about marijuana to the Jury and ask the Jury to decide if the law itself was wrong. ( )
Over a personal complication involving a different relationship, Linda and Ed split up. Linda's pain translated itself into anger, and a refusal to allow Ed to interact with his daughter. According to Ed, she simply "became a scorned woman." Linda discovered that Ed, not contrary with his beliefs, had a relationship and a child with another woman. Her reaction was to present Ed with an ultimatum: entirely renounce his other daughter and her mother, or renounce his relationship with Linda. Ed could not in good conscience simply walk away from his daughter... either one of them.
During the years of his relationship with Linda, Ed used marijuana in accordance with the terms of his religion, for inner spiritual journeys. Linda was well accustomed to this and wholly accepting, although she herself rarely participated. However, abruptly she withheld their daughter from his visits, and forced him to petition the court for her compliance, where she constantly cited his use of marijuana, and his religion, as evidence that he should be denied access to Ajanea.
As Ed's criminal trial proceeded, he attended his daughter as best he was allowed. Eventually he made a plea bargain for a greatly reduced sentence and charges, but was imprisoned from December 1, 2000 through April 2, 2002, whereupon he was released into "ISP" [Intensive Supervision Program], a supervised parole program, involving rigorous standards of behaviour including impositions of curfew, drug testing, drug/alcohol rehabilitation/orientation programs in addition to regular reporting. Employment and family participation in the program was also required.
Ed's criminal proceedings had progressed in high profile; journalists in various media, as well as the public, paid a lot of attention to the unique aspect of jury nullification, and especially in its application to these particular laws prohibiting the use of marijuana. To many he was a martyr and a freedom fighter. Certainly his actions and voice became the focal point that allowed the movement for non-violent reform to organize to the point where the issue is at long last before the New Jersey state legislature.
In a perversion of the truth, while on the one hand his highly-admired and public pursuit of justice of basing his defense on the grounds of the invalid nature of the laws themselves, at the same time, that same admiration and fame, in the form of further clippings and media documentation, was presented and accepted as evidence of inappropriate behavior for a parent, a threat somehow to Ajanea. In a heartbreaking ruling, his relationship with Ajanea was reduced to a mockery: supervised visitations: meetings between a father and a toddler tiny daughter in a severe, institutional gunmetal grey world under the close eye of a matron seemingly bred for the purpose of robotic, rather than maternal, behavior. Cruel and unusual punishment indeed for expressing his political beliefs.
In specific, upon his release on a Wednesday, the very following Monday he pursued the ability to re-establish his ties with Ajanea. Having become only stronger in his personal convictions and philosophies, he nonetheless complied with all the terms of supervised parole that accompanied his release; without fail, he passed each drug test and conducted himself in all manners consistent with the terms of his parole and the behavior of law-abiding citizens.
But he challenged the laws that required him to forego marijuana. He challenged them in his heart, in his head, and in his actions... in the way Americans are told is part of their birthright from their first breath: he openly protested the ruling on the courthouse steps in the week following the imposition of only supervised visitation. Given the media and public's attention on the jury nullification aspect of Ed's original criminal proceedings, the press and society's eye once again made much of this event.
Mr. Tim Bartlett was Mr. Forchion's parole officer. Mr. Bartlett took exception to Mr. Forchion's position on the marijuana laws.. and specifically, he took exception to the Mr. Forchion's highly public stance against those laws.
Mr. Bartlett perceived... insisted... that by this public speech, Mr. Forchion was advocating drug use, and as Mr. Forchion's conviction related to "drugs" and marijuana specifically, to continue to demonstrate no remorse for his original "crime" in such a manner, by supporting reform of those selfsame laws, Mr. Forchion was promoting his "crime."
On these grounds, he was able to obtain a warrant to remand Mr. Forchion back to jail. The frontrunner for reform of laws... laws which are now being re-examined for their severity, on the same grounds that Mr. Forchion has been pleading... was forcibly incarcerated yet again simply for voicing his opinion. He again served time from August 19, 2002 until January 24, 2003 for saying Legalize Marijuana.
So in what would become yet another escalating factor, he not only didn't get to see his daughter but lost his freedom yet again. For exercising his right to free speech.
It's a given: Mr. Forchion had not loved knowledge, freedom and his daughter through all those books, years and tears in order to be remanded back into jail for exercising his rights of representing masses of people who agreed with his certainty that the marijuana laws were unjustly harsh and imposed restrictions unfair to legal adults. Again representing himself, Mr. Forchion sought relief from his jail cell, legal relief and literal relief. Such base violations of his basic American right to freedom of speech and self-expression could not be tolerated, but there is only one avenue available to remedy that injustice: The Federal Court of the United States. And there he filed, in pro se, in the District of New Jersey, a Writ of Habeus Corpus. With his daughter and his spirituality and his convictions in the truth as his motivations once again.
And media attention, previously alert, became intense. The next development: against all odds, the case would be heard. Scrutiny became extreme. The verdict: MR. FORCHION PREVAILS, the US Federal Court supported Mr. Forchion in each of his actions, noting without exception his right to free speech, and ordering his immediate release with this ruling: FORCHION vs NEW JERSEY
The First Amendment exists so as to promote debate on issues of public importance. In this case, the advocacy of the legalization of marijuana is a legitimate political position in this country. The Libertarian Party, whose presidential candidate received over 380,000 votes in the 2000 election, advocates the legalization of drugs. Libertarian Party website at http://www.lp.org/issues/relegalize.html and http://www.lp.org/campaigns/pres/. Many elected public officials have called for a liberalization of the nation's drug laws. Simply put, Plaintiff's place in this debate will do nothing to harm a public that is already itself debating the current state of our nation's drug laws.
Media attention turned into a frenzy: Ed Forchion, his own man with his own integrity all along, and known as The Weedman, had his identity as NJ Weedman confirmed as a national symbol for freedom of expression and freedom to challenge unjust laws, with the marijuana laws and custody laws, while not at immediate issue, always in the larger picture. Ed created a series of commercials that aided in launching his campaign for free speech, for parental rights, for the reform of marijuana laws as well as his various candidacies; they document the sequence of events and while he made many and others were made about him, barely highlight the magnitude of the struggle.
Naturally, Ed pursued his one main purpose, what had been his purpose all along, at once: to reunite with Ajanea. At this point, in a retrospective, given the sequence of events thus far, the following chapter was bitterly predictable: Linda forced Mr. Forchion to pursue assistance from the court to be allowed access to his daughter, rapidly growing without her father, against all the spirit of the love and agreements of love from which she had been so joyfully, carefully born. Once again, the familiar yet still unbelievable refrain: here are clippings of his landmark, freedom-affirming US Federal Court decision: once again, the surreal decision that his insistence on preserving his most basic human rights makes him unfit to see his child.
Mr. Forchion understood these laws to be so unjust, these circumstances so extreme, with his faith and his persistence he continued yet to pursue parity and reason in yet another American privilege: one that comes from a dedication beyond many, perhaps most: he declared himself a candidate for public office. If this was the most effective avenue to educate, to reform, and most of all, to love his daughter and allow peace and freedom to other non-mainstream families, then so be it. He made a promise to himself and to others, in respect to the growing following his cases and causes continued to garner, to effect the system from within, according to the rights and responsibilities he'd been taught from his childhood in love, and in his adulthood with harshness, to regard as very personal indeed. Over the next several, he declared himself a candidate for three different elected offices within New Jersey, on the local and County level as well as ultimately a bid for the Governor's office -- and in each election he received several thousand votes; these were no sham candidacies but rather repeated and noteworthy indications that society was ready, willing and desiring of liberation of its values and a new respect for personal freedoms. The votes themselves are barely indicative of the wider respect he accumulated across the nation, along the way. While he never anticipated winning, he was deeply gratified and overwhelmed by the support he received in an open, fair and democratic process: but in a series of wrongs, that same support, that continued media attention, continued to be presented, and received, as evidence against him in his main pursuit, a relationship with his child. He lost something much greater than even the sum of all those elections combined: he lost his child.
In a nearly neverending set of twisted circumstances the twilight zone nightmare continues, peaks, and crashes. The blazing glory of being an individual citizen successfully pursuing his rights through the highest, most revered and noble Court in the land, the pinnacle of his legal pursuits fully justifying his entire quest... attempting with widespread formal and informal endorsement to hold public office in one county...and yet again and again... this relentless pursuit is his ironic undoing again. Impossibly nearby in a different county, this feat is presented as evidence that he is unfit, that he espouses drug use, that he will, in some unfathomable way, irreparably harm the child for whom he's fought, struggled, petitioned, advanced.. done every single legal thing to be allowed even a shred of a relationship to develop alongside... this child who's at the heart of the motives for all these trials, trials literal, trials emotional, trials actionable... these very actions in an effort to love his daughter... once again these are presented as evidence, and accepted as proof, that he is somehow a threat to Ajanea. Ultimately, in 2005 as he declared his candidacy for Governor, even supervised visitation is denied. Contact is entirely forbidden. Adding insult to injury, at Linda's court request, Linda's last name replaces "Forchion" as Ajanea's last name so as to 'protect the child from adverse association.'
In the past, in declaring himself a candidate for public office, in conjunction with the jury nullification publicity his previous indictment had generated, the public eye continued in its fascination with Mr. Forchion.. who, all while simply wanting to correct an overzealous law and take part as a normal father in his cherished daughter, found himself in a snowballing nightmare of events. With New Jersey's Senate about to consider a reassessment of its laws, what path for normalcy will open for Mr. Forchion, Ajanea, and individuals?
What heart can be taken? Public heart, true heart, dedicated heart. The laws are wrong. The system is flawed to the point of perversion. The legal actions of a man determined to pursue administrative changes in fundamental laws regarding specifics such as the use of marijuana, or any other laws deemed unreasonable, should in no circumstance be allowed to impede his right to normalcy on any level, let alone to impede his most sacred and primary right, the right to love his child.
Where does Mr. Forchion's heart remain? With his child. Where is he? In California. Where is she? Presumably in New Jersey.
Where is New Jersey? New Jersey is, at this writing, beginning to get its head into reality in terms of opening the door for a more realistic set of marijuana laws. After thirteen years of convictions both philosophical and terribly real as years spent behind bars, numerous attempts at three different legal public offices including Governor of New Jersey and each with thousands of votes and far, FAR more support than indicated by the immediate electorate, after countless courtrooms of "family" law where his pleadings and beggings for validation of his right to his family, his daughter, after media scrutiny and public support from around the globe on Mr. Ed Forchion and his dedication to reform... in short, after consuming him up, spitting him out and through it all, denying him his child and his personal privacies... New Jersey is finally, painstakingly, coldly, reviewing its laws on marijuana. It's a beginning. Forchion notes: "The law consideration is a step in the right direction, but short of California's Proposition 215."
Where is Mr. Forchion's home? New Jersey. Mr. Forchion residence is in California... a political exile still diligently pursuing reform.Mr. Forchion hasn't been winding his watch in anticipation of better times: he's not a man of inaction. In California, he runs a thriving and welcomed medical marijuana dispensary. With the core of his heart in New Jersey, however, even if some of that core has been shattered, he is still the one and only NJWeedman: he watches carefully what will happen in his Garden State because after thirteen years... the baker's brownie dozen... if New Jersey opens its collective mind by revising its marijuana laws, Ed "NJ Weedman" Forchion will be the among the first to open a legal dispensary, ready to show NJ how it can be done right. In order to merge his beliefs and his business and lead the open, integrated life of his choice, Ed spearheads a plan dedicated to opening a Rastafarian Temple in Camden, where as a faith-based group according to the Federal Religious Reform Act of 1993 and President Bushs Faith based Initative, they will participate in the legal dispensation of marijuana for Spiritual Use.
But his fundamental goal remains even more solid. He will pursue every hope and avenue to establish himself with Ajanea, to give her directly all the energy he's devoted to loving her all her life. All that energy fighting for the right to love her, spent in an effort that should have been her birthright, and his joy. At this writing, it's been three years.. three stolen years... since he's been "allowed" to even lay eyes on his daughter. She is thirteen. Her daddy is someone she saw regularly, but under the most confusing, awkward circumstances, a long time ago. It is unlikely she knows that her daddy's absence, and the contrived conditions of those awkward visits, were a direct result of her daddy's fight to keep her in his life and to keep basic human rights available to all Americans unjustly suffering abuses of a system that's designed to protect individuals, not persecute them.
He is her hero whether she knows it now or not. I fervently hope that some day, he's allowed to prove it directly to her instead of to the rest of the world. On Monday February 23, 2009 the New Jersey Senate will officially review its marijuana laws. Will humanity review its agenda? Most important to Ed Forchion, will this at last be the first real step towards home with his family complete?
It began with love. The love is intact, and even stronger, in its way, for its trials. Let it bless Mr. Forchion and Ajanea with the joy of a simple reunion and an opportunity to let it blossom. It's difficult to have hope, considering the journey thus far. Considering Mr. Forchion's fortitude and the depth of his resolve, it's difficult not to. If there's a light at the end of this tunnel, let it be the light from Ajanea's shining eyes, fixed on her daddy, home at last.
Mary Kelkar
February 22, 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment