Schneiderman
WATERTOWN, N.Y. (Legal Newsline) - New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced a consent order and judgment on Wednesday demanding that a Watertown head shop permanently remove mislabeled or unlabeled products from the store's shelves.
Trip on the Wild Side II and Kenneth Wayne Hamm, the store's owner, must remove these products, including synthetic drugs and street drug alternatives known as designer drugs. Hamm must also pay $25,000 in penalties and $2,000 in court costs.
Schneiderman's agents allegedly visited the store and purchased items such as Adarol Energy, Lucky Kratom, Zaney Bar, Cali Crunch and nitrous oxide canisters.
"The proliferation of designer drugs has become a crisis in Jefferson County, New York State and across the country," Schneiderman said.
Jefferson County Supreme Court Judge James P. McClusky signed the order permanently banning the sale of synthetic intoxicants or drugs. The order is the result of Schneiderman's office looking into the sale of synthetic drugs in head shops throughout the state.
Schneiderman's office alleged that head shop retailers were selling designer drugs such as synthetic bath salts and marijuana, in addition to promoting the drugs and giving tutorials on ingesting and preparing them.
State and federal authorities have tried to outlaw certain chemicals and their analogs to remove them from commerce, but the efforts continue to fall short as chemists and producers change the formulas to stay a step ahead of the laws.