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“This is legal weed/pot/marijuana/chronic/maryjane/whacky tobacy/etc. … And yes, it actually does give you the same effect despite your understandable disbelief,” reads a description on the company’s website.

The Izms was founded by Adam Wookey, grandson of the developer who built Hazelton Lanes, and a former cocaine dealer who was jailed at the age of 22.

Upon his release, as he later told a reporter for Metro Toronto, he set to work marketing “legal alternatives” to illicit drugs; first PurePillz, which manufactured pill alternatives to ecstacy and speed, and then The Izms, which focused on smokable offerings.

Currently, the company carries three varieties: Grape Drank, Gin N Juice and Luaulove, all available for between $10 and $20, and sold in either 1.25 or 3.5 gram packages.

Promising “less burnout and paranoia than illicits” and “no legal risk,” the product has been ubiquitous at head shops, convenience stores and romance boutiques across Canada.

That started to change in January, when a man walked into the Love Shop, a romance store in Hamilton, claimed he had a weapon, and ordered the clerk to hand over all the synthetic marijuana.

Within weeks, the bizarre robbery had put the product in the crosshairs of law enforcement, and elicited a March public alert from Toronto Police warning that “any business owners in possession of the described products should call police.”

The police renewed the advisory after Tuesday’s raid. Although the “variety stores” targeted by the operation lost their stocks of the hallucinogen, nobody was charged.