VANCOUVER, B.C. — In a claim filed at Canada federal court, sex toy and novelty wholesaler LockerRoom Marketing Ltd. claims that Canada's Minister of Health wrongfully seized products containing alkyl nitrites.
While the products are marketed as leather cleaners and liquid incense, Health Canada claims the products are commonly known as "poppers" that, when inhaled, act as an aphrodisiac. Health Canada says users can possibly encounter danger to their health, including death.
LockerRoom is one of the largest adult entertainment and sex toy and novelty wholesalers in Canada. The company also has a retail operation on the Internet.
Roots of the case go back to May when Health Canada and police officers inspected Lockerroom's warehouse in Vancouver and later concluded that the leather cleaner product was a drug.
Health Canada seized the products and requested that the company stop selling it under a voluntary recall of products containing alkyl nitrites.
LockerRoom, which complied with a recall, filed an application in the Federal Court of Canada claiming the Minister of Health misapplied the Food and Drugs Act by misinterpreting the word "drug."
The Vancouver, B.C., based-company states in its application that its "suffering economic loss and lost business opportunity as a result of Health Canada's decision."
LockerRoom claims it manufactures and markets the products as leather cleaner "for cleaning personal leather apparel used in the niche market of sexual fetishism that includes, among other things, bondage," according to the application, which says that the products feature "clear warnings against human ingestion" on the labels."
"The applicant also sells the type of personal leather apparel on which the leather cleaner is used, such as harnesses and cockrings."
Officials at LockerRoom did not respond to XBIZ for comment on the claim.
