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The “4/20 at Noon” march and rally in support of state Sen. Nicholas Scutari’s marijuana legalization bill was organized by Ed Forchion — also known as NJ Weedman. Forchion said it will culminate with the smoke-in beginning at 4:20 p.m.
Jawara McIntosh — also known as Tosh 1 — said he plans to attend “in an effort to teach the world, or at least New Jersey, the health benefits of marijuana.”
“There are just too many medical reports and medical professionals who believe in the medicinal benefits of marijuana to ignore the big government push to limit access,” McIntosh told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “The only ones who should fear it are the pharmaceutical companies whose medicines rarely work, or work with enormous side effects.”
Jawara G. Mcintosh, Carlotta Z. Leslie (MUGSHOTS: Mahwah PD)
McIntosh has been free since posting a $200,000 cash bond in December. Two months ago, a judge in Hackensack granted him a one-week furlough so he could perform at a concert in Kingston, Jamaica, as part of Reggae Month there.
McIntosh, 34, didn’t have a license — and had open bottles of booze on the front seat — when his rental car was stopped for recklessly cutting off other motorists on Route 17, Mahwah police said in June.
The officer who pulled over the 2013 Nissan Maxima said McIntosh appeared under the influence of some type of drug. He and his passenger also gave conflicting accounts of where they’d come from and where they were headed, the officer said.
The vehicle was searched, with McIntosh’s consent, after other officers arrived. Mahwah Police Chief James Batelli said they found two large pieces of luggage in the trunk that reeked of pot.
The officers then found two bundles of marijuana inside one and a third in the other, Batelli said. One was shrink-wrapped, he said, and the other two were wrapped in duct tape.
Mcintosh and his passenger, Carlotta Z. Leslie, 23, both of Dorchester, Mass., “denied any knowledge that the marijuana was in the vehicle,” the chief added.
Both were arrested on charges of marijuana possession with the intent to distribute the drug. McIntosh also was charged with two counts of driving under the influence of drugs, driving with a suspended license, improper passing and having an open container of alcohol in a vehicle.
During his six months behind bars, McIntosh led Bible study classes at the county jail, his attorney, Ron Bar-Nadav, told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
“He’s a man full of love,” Bar-Nadav said.
The “4/20″ counterculture holiday — in both the U.S. and Canada — stems from a group of San Rafael, California teenagers calling themselves the Waldos who began using the term in 1971 as a code for their meeting time while on a search for an abandoned cannabis crop they’d heard about.
They never found the herb, but the term took root. It soon became associated with pot smoking, in general, before sprouting into an annual national observance — publicized in large part by followers of the Grateful Dead.
Forchion said he’s hoping at least 500 attendees will fire up at the Statehouse following a walk from the Trenton train station beginning at 2 o’clock Sunday afternoon.
Trenton police have not commented.
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In a bid to have him released in October, McIntosh’s lawyers showed a Superior Court judge in Hackensack a video that they said was proof of a “family bond” that would guarantee he doesn’t try to evade prosecution.
The video includes a brief interview with one of McIntosh’s young daughters, Selecta Jah Tosh, saying how involved he is in her and her sister’s lives. Also interviewed is his sister, Niame McIntosh, a Boston public school teacher who said her brother’s time spent behind bars so far “is really too long knowing that he’s really not a bad person.
Peter Tosh with Bob Marley, Mick Jagger
“He’s not a menace to society.”
Niame McIntosh refers in the video to their world-renowned father, who was killed during a 1987 home invasion in his native Jamaica, as “a musical ambassador for equal rights.”
Grammy winner Peter Tosh (Winston Hubert McIntosh) was a member of Bob Marley’s Wailers, arguably the most accomplished reggae band in musical history. Although an international recording star, Tosh didn’t achieve fame in the U.S. until his 1978 duet with Mick Jagger on the Temptations song “Don’t Look Back.”
He fought publicly against apartheid and for the legalization of marijuana for much of his career.
McIntosh who shares his father’s “Legalize It” advocacy and goes by the performing name “Tosh 1,” refers to himself in the video as the “last hope” for his father’s legacy.
“I’m going to make sure I live up to that,” he adds:
A group called Cannibas Patriots Unite (CPUnite.org) says McIntosh was arrested for “driving while dread[locked]” and called him the world’s “most important political prisoner.”
The California/Colorado non-profit group contends that McIntosh is accused of possessing an “herb” that in 20 states, including New Jersey, is considered to have medicinal value.
For those who follow the African-based spiritual ideology known as Rastafari, pot is a sacrament — “whether it be a stick or a ton,” the group adds.
“One crucial element of this mission is to make it very clear to the world that arrests for cannabis are politically motivated and are not based on science or legitimate social needs,” CPUnite said in a statement following the bail hearing.
“Under our mandate we hold (and science supports) that cannabis herb is a perfect medicine as it repairs, restores and supplements the mechanism by which our body heals itself: the endocannabinoid system,” it continued.
“Its ease of use, safety profile, and wide range of applications means that cannabis herb is an effective, safe medicine. It belongs into the hands of the people, for it provides treatment at fraction of the cost of currently sanctioned healthcare. In this, The Herb lives up to its reputation as The Healing of the Nation.”
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