Pubdate: Fri, 27 Jul 2012
Source: Free Press, The (MN)
Copyright: 2012 The Free Press
Contact:  http://www.mankatofreepress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2566
Author: Dan Nienaber

STORE PULLS INCENSE PRODUCTS

MANKATO - A Mankato head shop has pulled incense products that also
contained intoxicating chemicals after federal and state agents raided
a similar store in Duluth Wednesday.

An employee at Smokes 4 Less said owner Omar Wazwaz decided to take
that type of incense off store shelves Thursday after hearing reports
of the raids in Duluth and elsewhere. The incense was going to be
available at the store through the end of the month, but Wazwaz
changed his mind after the raids, she said.

Federal authorities and Duluth police officers on Wednesday
confiscated more than 20,000 packages of what they suspected is
synthetic marijuana and more than $3,000 in cash from a store there
called The Last Place On Earth, a Duluth Police Department news
release said. Another $2.8 million was seized from bank accounts
controlled by the store's owner.

On Thursday Gov. Mark Dayton sent a statewide message about synthetic
drugs by symbolically signing a law passed in April that will make it
a felony to sell a wide variety of synthetic drugs starting Wednesday.
The new law also provides more authority to the state's Board of
Pharmacy to make rule changes more quickly, which will allow the board
to keep up with synthetic drug manufactures who make slight chemical
alterations to evade new laws.

Smokes 4 Less, which is currently located in a strip mall near the 
downtown Cub Foods, and several other stores in the state owned by 
Wazwaz have changed their supply of synthetic marijuana products as 
state laws have changed. When he was interviewed two years ago about the 
products he was selling, Wazwaz told The Free Press: "I'm paying 
beaucoup taxes because we're selling a ton of it. The government is 
making a lot of money."

He also said the products, which sold for $40 for a 3 gram package at
that time, were being sold as incense and were not for human
consumption. Wazwaz compared the incense, which had names such as
Trance, Bubble Dum, and Happy Orange, to cleaning products and said
they shouldn't be banned because some people were using them improperly.

There are people in Blue Earth County who are using the product as a
drug, said Angie Youngerberg, Blue Earth County assistant director of
human services. Synthetic drug use has been a topic of discussion for
people in a variety of the county's social services programs, she said.

There have not been a rash of medical-related problems with the
synthetic drugs in the Mankato area, said Kevin Burns, a spokesman for
Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato. There have been Emergency Room
visits where the drugs have been a factor, but not many, he said.

"I'm not going to say we don't see it, but we don't see it in great
numbers," he said.

Mankato police officers have not been issuing citations to people
caught with synthetic marijuana products, said Cmdr. Pam Hermanson.
Laws already exist banning synthetic cannabinoids, but people making
the products have slightly changed the chemical compounds to avoid
violating existing laws.

At least four people have been charged with a misdemeanor in Nicollet
County this year for possession of synthetic marijuana products. A
Blue Earth County sheriff's deputy cited a 20-year-old Mankato man for
a misdemeanor for having 10 packages suspected synthetic marijuana on
June 27.

An 18-year-old New Ulm man pleaded guilty to the charge when he
appeared in Nicollet County court Wednesday. Charges are still pending
for the others, including a man represented by attorney Calvin Johnson.

Johnson said current synthetic drug laws are too vague. In many of the
cases he's aware of the charges are dismissed in plea agreements
because area prosecutors don't want to deal with them. Johnson said he
also requests the suspected drugs be tested for the cases he has
handled. That has never resulted in a chemical analysis by the Bureau
of Criminal Apprehension.

"Isn't it ironic that we treat a synthetic form of marijuana worse
than the real thing?" Johnson said.

Possession of a small amount of marijuana is a petty misdemeanor,
which isn't considered a criminal offense in Minnesota.
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