A Bowling Green shop owner has been found not guilty of selling drug paraphernalia.
A jury on Wednesday determined that Mike Husain, who owns Mezmorize, at 181 S. Main St., has no control
over how his products are used once they leave his store.
Bowling Green Police executed a search warrant at the business — recognizable by a large tie-dyed sheet
in the window —in April and seized items including glass water pipes, other pipes, a detox agent used to
mask drug use during urine tests, and synthetic urine.
“It’s everything that is part of the drug trade, at least what we considered,” stated city prosecuting
attorney Matt Reger.
“All of those items taken together constitute paraphernalia,” with the purpose to be used with illegal
drugs, he said this morning.
The jury, however, took less than two hours Wednesday night to report its verdict.
Husain, 38, who lives in Wooster, considered the conduct by city harassment, with the intent “to set
people up.”
The case, which he called “bogus,” was “a waste of taxpayer dollars,” he stated today. “They just want us
out of town.”
The items in his store “are obtained legally and we sell them in a legal fashion for legal purposes.”
The store carries dozens of herbs for use with the pipes, and refuses to sell to anyone who asks whether
the items will help create a “high,” Husain stated.
Once the merchandise leaves the store, “we can’t control what they do. …”
Mezmerize opened in the fall of 2009; in April 2010 an informant made a purchase that resulted in a
search warrant conducted by Bowling Green Police.
Muncipal Court Judge Mark Reddin has ordered police to return the items taken in that raid which,
according to Husain, are valued at nearly $10,000.