URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v16/n555/a06.html
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Votes: 0
Pubdate: Tue, 16 Aug 2016
Source: Trentonian, The (NJ)
Copyright: 2016 The Trentonian
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Website: http://www.trentonian.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1006
Author: Isaac Avilucea
‘WEEDMOBILE’ DESTROYED, WEED ADVOCATE CRITICIZES FORFEITURE LAW
TRENTON – Marijuana activist Ed Forchion gave a famous Los Angeles graffiti artist $300 cash, an ounce of weed and an expensive bong to paint a political statement on the side of his “Weedmobile” in 2008.
The provocative portrait showed NJ Weedman blowing smoke into Uncle Sam’s face. The van would later become a rolling billboard for Forchion’s Trenton restaurant and pot temple, capturing in cartoonishly large candor his pro-marijuana views and disdain for New Jersey’s “hypocritical” drug laws.
He drove it back and forth to court in Burlington County, where he employed a nullification tactic he has promised to use again to convince a jury to acquit him of distribution charges in his drug case in Mercer County.
“Just like [Douglas] MacArthur rode the submarine back from the Philippines, I felt the same way about the van,” Forchion said, likening it to the general’s famous escape during World War II.
The van was an apparent “irritant” to Trenton Police. And it was recently reduced to a block of red, white and green metal, Forchion said.
For the outspoken marijuana legalization advocate, his van, which he claims authorities seized illegally during an April raid, now symbolizes the unfairness and unwieldiness of the state’s civil forfeiture laws, which were derided by one Washington D.C. libertarian think tank as among the worst in the country.
“They use asset forfeiture to steal your stuff,” said Forchion, who is facing myriad drug charges following a raid on his city businesses. “It’s crap. It’s entirely against what the Founding Fathers envisioned. The Fourth Amendment virtually doesn’t exist anymore because of the War of Drugs. I want my history back.”
A police spokesman could not comment because of ongoing litigation between the department and Forchion.
The destruction of the Weedmobile was the latest chapter in Forchion’s somewhat Pyrrhic struggle with city officials, police and prosecutors.
Forchion was in court last week battling to regain belongings seized during the drug raid.
During the raid, the Weedmobile was seized along with Forchion’s delivery truck and his girlfriend’s car.
The roundup also led to the seizure of $19,000 worth of marijuana, officials said, and the arrests of 11 people, including Forchion.
Forchion called the amount “prosecutor math” and “propaganda they sell to the public” to prove marijuana is bad.
Last week, a judge denied Forchion’s request to get back surveillance tapes and video equipment he says proves Trenton Police perjured themselves in a federal lawsuit he brought against the city a month before the raid.
The lawsuit stemmed from a pair of late-night visits police paid to Forchion’s restaurant and pot temple.
Forchion said that when he went to try to get the vehicles back, police would only release his girlfriend’s car.
He was told that the Weedmobile and the delivery truck were withheld under New Jersey’s civil forfeiture law, which allows authorities to take property they believe was purchased or used in furtherance of a crime.
A report released last year by the Institute for Justice found that New Jersey has “some of the worst” civil forfeiture laws in the country.” The think tank gave the Garden State a D-, noting that law enforcement can seize and retain people’s property in the absence of a criminal conviction.
The report noted that county prosecutors collected more than $72 million in forfeitures from 2009 to 2013 some of that money used to fund police initiatives such as body cams, according to published reports.
The report also pointed to a lack of regulations requiring New Jersey law enforcement track and report forfeitures.
Forchion said that despite being told by Trenton Police that his vehicles were being kept, the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office filed a civil forfeiture for only $400 in cash found on him, at his businesses and inside a donation jar.
He said prosecutors did not go after the vehicles and he planned to fight in court to get them back.
But he found out this week from the owner of Hawk’s Towing and Recovery, that the Weedmobile was crushed down to a metal block after it was impounded and towed to the lot. Forchion had 20 days to pick it up and pay the fees or it was considered abandoned, owner Brian “Hawk” Hawkins said.
Forchion said police misinformation prevented him from getting the van out of the lot in time.
He said the van had so much sentimental value.
After purchasing the gasguzzling 1986 Ford E-150 for $1,400 from a man in Studio City, California, Forchion drove the Weedmobile to New Jersey to restart his life. He decked it out with intricate colorful murals of marijuana, paraphernalia and the words “God grown.”
Forchion also slapped on some $2,500 rims.
What upset Forchion is he believes police took the vehicle as part of a retaliatory campaign to put him out of business.
“It wasn’t worth selling,” Forchion said. “It was only valuable to me.”
Forchion points to other actions police have taken against him, like when he was arrested for alleged cyber-bulling after he called a Trenton cop a pedophile.
He has also been issued numerous tickets, including one he received months after he sparked up a joint at City Hall.
Forchion believes police didn’t like the Weedmobile’s message. But feels that message will resonate with a jury.
“It’s symbolic of the harassment I’ve been receiving for the last few months,” he said. “It was done illegally. I think it was done personally and it was done with spite in their hearts. … I’m not a rapist, a robber, a murder. I just smoke weed. The law’s wrong, not me. Twenty-six states have disregarded the federal government’s marijuana laws. I find it hypocritical that the state of New Jersey is violating federal law by having dispensaries but also prosecuting me. They’re going to be publicly embarrassed by this dread-headed, noneducated Negro.”
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom