Canadian customs and US shipping

[mk8888]

Greetings,

Just stepping into the world of vaping and was hoping the experienced users and experts here could impart some up-to-date knowledge regarding the Canadian customs for importing e-cigs. As far as I know, nicotine containing product not legally prescribed by physicians will be seized or returned to senders.

But I'm looking into buying the Halo G6 starter kit, but with blank cartomizers instead of nicotine containing ones. The whole package should not contain any nicotine or any fluid at all.

1) Would that pose a problem for the customs? As far as I know it is the nicotine being the issue for Health Canada, not the device. Has anyone done what I planned to do and had their packages rejected?

2) I've read some people suggested having the sender ship the package as inconspicuous as possible; nothing that would flag it for checks. What exactly does that mean? Requesting the sender to declare the package as "gift"?

3) Should I request the sender to make it explicitly clear that the package contains no nicotine products?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Lori2014]

I've placed 4 orders in the US over the last couple of months, and all have zipped through Customs Clearance in a day. The 2nd last one was from Joyetech, and contained two starter kits and extra batteries. All of that info, and the company name, were clearly stated on the package and customs declaration. None of my orders contained nicotine. Good luck with your order

 

[Zurd]

Mostly everything will go through, it's worth the risk, nicotine or not, don't sweat over the details and just order whatever you want!

 

[mk8888]

I've placed 4 orders in the US over the last couple of months, and all have zipped through Customs Clearance in a day. The 2nd last one was from Joyetech, and contained two starter kits and extra batteries. All of that info, and the company name, were clearly stated on the package and customs declaration. None of my orders contained nicotine. Good luck with your order

Ah thanks! That's good to hear. Cheers!

 

[vincom]

my nicotine got seized just this week

 

[mk8888]

my nicotine got seized just this week

Dang. Sorry to hear that.

 

[Stiiinger]

I've ordered juice from Mount Baker Vapor a half dozen times, usually about 6-8 30ml bottles, and all made it through without issues thus far.

 

[Maiar]

I've ordered several times with myfreedomsmokes and the packages have all gone through customs in less than a day. I made my first order with Mt. Baker in mid October, it got to customs on the 31st and has been in "customs clearance" ever since. I just got through talking to customer service at Mt. Baker and sending an email to customs with the tracking number to see what's up. If I know my government though, there isn't going to be anybody answering emails at all. That would entail paying someone.
I'm broke as a joke and was gonna be relying on those three 30ml bottles of juice and the Protank II and two ET-S's for the foreseeable future. But with my luck i should have known if anyone's shipment was going to get seized for no ....ing reason it would be mine lol.

 

[Maiar]

Oh i should mention Mt. Baker has the best customer service I've found so far ordering online. Those guys have that chat window deal going on and always ask if they can help you when you're on their site. They even answer your emails at 3am lol. They've said if customs refused the package it would get sent back to them, and they would try and ship it through again free of charge. Here's hoping I get my stuff soon lol

 

[vincom]

it seems if its going through the customs in mississauga (pearson airport my guess) it might get seized as this is where my nic got seized

 

[Zang]

Wow, I don't think nicotine or gear is legally seized. I recently drove across the border into Canada and got searched. I had quite a bit of nicotine and the customs official said, "we have no problem with this."

 

[Zurd]

Wow, I don't think nicotine or gear is legally seized. I recently drove across the border into Canada and got searched. I had quite a bit of nicotine and the customs official said, "we have no problem with this."

That's what people have been saying all along, health canada shouldn't be able to stop at customs either nicotine or liquid with nicotine in it. People have been saying they're just doing the high school bully, they shouldn't do it but they do and nobody fight them in courts.

 

[Zang]

That's what people have been saying all along, health canada shouldn't be able to stop at customs either nicotine or liquid with nicotine in it. People have been saying they're just doing the high school bully, they shouldn't do it but they do and nobody fight them in courts.

So, there must be a document around to present to whoever seizes nicotine or other vape related items? HC goes into the customs sorting facilities and looks through mail, or post office workers hand it over? This is crazy - they should be charged also for the violation and the inconvenience. Grrr.

 

[vexxis]

That's what people have been saying all along, health canada shouldn't be able to stop at customs either nicotine or liquid with nicotine in it. People have been saying they're just doing the high school bully, they shouldn't do it but they do and nobody fight them in courts.

Well one company did fight them poorly and we are suffering because of it: Zen Cigarette Inc v. Canada. Basicly the company did make health claims and didn't present any scientific evidence that it was less than 4 mg per dose so they lost. A proper legal challenge could succeed but until then HC knows they can bully anyone without the deep pockets and will to properly challenge them.

 

[Zurd]

Well one company did fight them poorly and we are suffering because of it: Zen Cigarette Inc v. Canada. Basicly the company did make health claims and didn't present any scientific evidence that it was less than 4 mg per dose so they lost. A proper legal challenge could succeed but until then HC knows they can bully anyone without the deep pockets and will to properly challenge them.

Quite an interesting link, never knew about that one, thanks for sharing!

They tried well, they said that ecig doesn't help people quit smoking (that warning we've been saying since ecigs got out) but then in VII - 38, the court says otherwise, sounds fishy to me. They tried telling them that one vape is less than 4mg, which is prolly true. But even today nobody knows how much mg of nicotine you inhale in only one puff. It depends on so many things especially how you vape.

 

[Maiar]

The more i read up on this the more I'm thinking my latest order got ....ing seized. Funny since it's not technically illegal as far as i can tell. What a bunch of ....ing .......s. I'm on a very limited budget and was really counting on this last shipment to hold me over for quite awhile. But i guess .... me right? I should have looked into it more before. But i honestly thought it wouldn't be an issue. Especially since I've had a few packages with juice in them get through with zero issue.

 

[mk8888]

Wow, I don't think nicotine or gear is legally seized. I recently drove across the border into Canada and got searched. I had quite a bit of nicotine and the customs official said, "we have no problem with this."

Hmm. May I ask if you're a Canadian citizen when driving across the border into Canada or a foreigner visiting? The latter seems to be allowed.

Well one company did fight them poorly and we are suffering because of it: Zen Cigarette Inc v. Canada. Basicly the company did make health claims and didn't present any scientific evidence that it was less than 4 mg per dose so they lost. A proper legal challenge could succeed but until then HC knows they can bully anyone without the deep pockets and will to properly challenge them.

A great read! Thank you for the link. I think HC gave several reasons (where any one of which is enough to prohibit Zen) to the prohibition of Zen's shipment but Zen only challenged one of them. On top of that there's the 4mg nicotine per "dosage unit", where dosage unit is defined differently by both parties (Zen says it's per single inhalation of a cartridge while HC says it's per cartridge). According to the investigation, Zen promoted e-cig as potential nicotine cessation device, which amongst other reasons, puts e-cig under the definition of "drugs" by HC.

Poorly fought, indeed

Gotta say HC made a compelling argument against Zen there.

Quite an interesting link, never knew about that one, thanks for sharing!

They tried well, they said that ecig doesn't help people quit smoking (that warning we've been saying since ecigs got out) but then in VII - 38, the court says otherwise, sounds fishy to me. They tried telling them that one vape is less than 4mg, which is prolly true. But even today nobody knows how much mg of nicotine you inhale in only one puff. It depends on so many things especially how you vape.

It appears that Zen did promote e-cig as a product that helps to quit smoking. Maybe on their website at some point?

You're absolutely right about the "less than 4mg" claim. A vape can be big or small. It can't be determined when there's so many variables in play. The device HC used to compared to e-cig apparently dispenses the vape to the user and does not depend on user inhalation strength, therefore it's very much controlled.

 

[retired1]

Quite an interesting link, never knew about that one, thanks for sharing!

They tried well, they said that ecig doesn't help people quit smoking (that warning we've been saying since ecigs got out) but then in VII - 38, the court says otherwise, sounds fishy to me. They tried telling them that one vape is less than 4mg, which is prolly true. But even today nobody knows how much mg of nicotine you inhale in only one puff. It depends on so many things especially how you vape.

Actually, there have been plasma studies done regarding ecig usage vs cigarette usage.

Nicotine absorption from electronic cigarette use: comparison between first and new generation devices

Full study here: Nicotine absorption from electronic cigarette use: comparison between first and new-generation devices : Scientific Reports : Nature Publishing Group

Comparison with nicotine absorption from a tobacco cigarette

To compare nicotine absorption between tobacco cigarette and EC devices, we used the results from a study by Vansickel et al8. In that study, minimal nicotine absorption from the ECs was observed, while smoking one tobacco cigarette in 5 minutes led to an increase in plasma nicotine levels from 2.10 ng/ml to 18.80 ng/ml. Projection of the findings by Vansickel et al to our data is displayed in Figure 4. After 5 minutes of EC use, plasma nicotine levels were substantially lower compared to smoking one tobacco cigarette (almost 3-fold lower compared to new- and 4-fold lower compared to first-generation device). Plasma nicotine levels were equal between tobacco cigarette use at 5 minutes and new generation EC device at 35 minutes (18.52 ng/ml); however, tobacco cigarette showed 73% and 19% higher levels of nicotine compared to 35 and 65 minutes ad lib use of the first-generation device (10.88 ng/ml and 15.75 ng/ml respectively).

It's studies like this that the "anti-everything that has nicotine" crowd hates, and one of the main reasons why we're now seeing a change in tactics. Now it's "It looks like smoking" and "What about the children?!". As more research shows the effectiveness of today's vaping devices, we'll see more and more knee jerk reactions from those who are trying their level best to get vaping banned.

 

[Zurd]

That's quite a good study there! But eliquid at 50mg?? I tried 32mg when I started, just for fun, didn't took me long to start sweating and my heart was beating fast. Something doesn't add up in that study, we all know that 24mg is extremely high and even people smoking 2 PAD we recommend them starting at 18mg.

 

[retired1]

I started out at 24mg, and there were days I wish it were higher. Down to 12mg at this point, and it looks like that's where I'll be staying.

Bear in mind, too, it depends on the device being used. I started with an eGo C-Twist and Vivi Novas. Huge difference between those and a mech running a RSST.