A popular magic mushroom dispensary chain in Ontario has had enough of the complications associated with operating its business in a legal grey area.
Fun Guyz, which had over 30 stores throughout the province, is now moving its psilocybin sales online. These shops were raided by authorities over 120 times before store owners gave up the battle to keep them open.
“There have been numerous raids from stores to warehouses to production centres,” a representative told the Toronto Star on Monday. “It cost us a lot of money to stay open, so, at this point, we’re just closing down.”
Multiple staff are potentially facing drug trafficking and other criminal charges for their role in the operation. They of course believe in what they are doing and advocate for the drug’s benefits, but the law is currently not on their side.
Former Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner, Chris Lewis, thinks that the drug should remain illegal. He has some highly questionable points of view.
“It can cause all kinds of issues and we don’t really understand what the addiction issues are around that,” Lewis told CTV Windsor last week, “including its use as a gateway drug where people end up using other things like cocaine and crack.”
There isn’t a shred of evidence that magic mushrooms have ever inspired somebody to chalk up a line of cocaine or have a blast of crack.
Read more: Windsor police raid new mushroom dispensary, owners open up shop next day
Read more: Not all Oregon cities approve of the state’s magic mushroom laws
No brick-and-mortar shops = cheaper shrooms, at least
The representative who spoke to the Toronto Star says merchandise will be much more affordable online without the business spending millions to stay afloat due to the constant conflict with police.
“Without the overhead of stores, we’ll be able to charge less,” they said. “We’re able to drop the prices on our product and still give everyone equal access.”
One professor from the University of Guelph says that Fun Guyz pushed it too far by opening so many stores. The bright psychedelic artwork that the shops were known to have on their exterior wasn’t exactly discrete either.
They “pushed the envelope a little too far,” sociology professor, Andy Hathaway, told the CBC. Fun Guyz certainly had a plethora of locations compared to other zoomer-distributing storefront chains.
One of the most recent raids occurred in Chatham-Kent — a municipality in southwestern Ontario. Over C$14,000 worth of psilocybin and other goods were seized in September. Another occurred there a couple of months earlier at an older location.
Aside from multiple psilocybin mushroom strains, Fun Guyz also sells THC vaporizers, DMT cartridges and high-grade cannabis flower.
rowan@mugglehead.com
