New Jersey marijuana legend Ed Forchion sees himself as the very picture of social equity in the modern cannabis industry. He’s been trying to transition to the fully legal trade for years now, but the self-described “grandfather of the black market” said he won’t be backed down by law enforcement or politicians when it comes to selling weed in his home state, even if he doesn’t yet have the full blessing of authorities.

At the same time, Forchion also empathizes with other business owners who are frustrated by a new crop of unlicensed cannabis dealers in the state capital, while he and other permit applicants sit in a kind of gray market limbo.

Forchion, who’s been selling marijuana openly at his NJ Weedman dispensary right across the street from City Hall in the state capital of Trenton since 2015, has had plenty of experience with the legal system: He estimated he’s been arrested and put on trial more than 40 times for cannabis-related crimes, sent to prison twice, but has been found not guilty in the vast majority of trials he’s faced.

And Forchion has insisted that, since the New Jersey government legalized recreational marijuana in 2021, he won’t wait politely for permission to do what he’s been doing most of his adult life.

“On Day One of legalization, obviously, I was selling,” Forchion said. “They said, ‘You’re not legal yet.’ I said, ‘Listen, they passed the law, and we’re legal.’”

“They make it legal, and I’m supposed to stop now? Say, okay, let the white guys sell weed legally, and I’ll wait until you adjust the laws and bring in all this social equity bullshit, and then include me? I said, ‘No.’ In my Rosa Parks voice, ‘I’m not getting off this canna bus, and I’m not going to the back of the bus. I’m selling weed right now. I’m selling weed like I’m white,’” Forchion recalled.

“I said, ‘Fuck you, I’m selling weed, right now. I’m not going to wait until you fix the law to include guys like me. We been selling weed and going to prison for 20 years, for 40 years.’ I went to prison twice for weed. And you think when they made it legal I wasn’t going to sell weed? Fuck off. That’s what I told everybody,” he said.

Forchion learned from his experience with the legal system, and he learned well. The Black entrepreneur – who’s also a military veteran – said he’s beaten scores of criminal charges by pleading not guilty and then relying on a “jury nullification” strategy, which means he trusted that there would be at least one sympathetic juror who would refuse to convict. And most of the time, it turned out he was right.

“I beat my cases when I was guilty. Everybody knew I was guilty, but jury nullification works very well in marijuana cases. Like, there’s always a pothead on the jury. You’re not going to get a conviction,” Forchion said. “I brag that I have (boxer Floyd) Mayweather numbers.”

That refusal to bow down to the powers-that-be has persisted to this day, Forchion said, and it doesn’t appear to be failing him anytime soon. Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora indicated to Green Market Report recently that there’s not much interest in cracking down on shops like NJ Weedman for alleged unlicensed cannabis sales even if Forchion is technically guilty, because Forchion has obtained a conditional cannabis retail license from the state Cannabis Regulatory Commission, and the city doesn’t want to get into a fight with state regulators.

Still, Forchion’s paperwork with the city of Trenton has been stalled for nearly two years, meaning it’s not yet clear when his business will become fully legitimate in the eyes of the state.

It’s also not clear how the legal disconnect will ultimately be resolved, because conditional licensees such as Forchion aren’t supposed to engage in full-on cannabis sales, as he’s been doing for years.

“My application has been sitting in zoning since Sept. 11, 2022,” he said. “I haven’t gotten final because city politics has stalled me.”

Forchion also said he feels much of the same aggravation as John Dockery, a social equity marijuana retailer in Trenton who has become one of the most vocal critics of the city’s lack of enforcement against brazen unlicensed marijuana shops that have reportedly proliferated.

A lot of the new entrants are obtaining Trenton city business licenses as fronts that are then used to sell marijuana, a problem that he suggested could be easily solved if the political willpower existed, Forchion said.

“These people who are opening weed shops all over Trenton … they just go down and lie at the city clerk’s office and say they’re opening up candy stores,” Forchion said, adding that there’s one within 100 feet of his conditionally licensed dispensary across from City Hall. “The city of Trenton could solve the problem very easily just by enforcing the regular business licenses… That’s where the city is fumbling.”

Forchion’s attorney, Sam Redlich, said that he and his client are trying to resolve the license application situation with the city “amicably” at a planning board meeting later this month, but added there are also still issues with the state rules that have to be addressed.

Eventually, Redlich said, he’s confident that Forchion will get all of his paperwork straightened out and become a fully legitimate and licensed marijuana business, but that dealing with the Trenton city government has been a “comedy of errors.”

“Right now, what we’re focused on is sitting down with the mayor so that we can get direction,” Redlich said. “Then we plan on sitting down with the (state cannabis regulators) so we can deal with some of these rules that Weedman has felt are designed to create equity … but are having the opposite effect.”

NJWeedmans Dispensary LLC Conditional License Approval Letter