So I spoke with Health Canada again today... mainly because it's the 6th, and I wanted to find out if there was any way to obtain confirmation that my letter was indeed received. I sent an email to the email address supplied on the letter and to the email address at the top of the link I sent above. I did not receive any confirmation that the letter was read (which I find ignorant).
This is what I was told (in short).
- You will not receive confirmation, but no news is good news.
- If I sent to both addresses, they will have received my letter.
- There is no system in place to show I have already talked about this issue.
- All blocks at customs are handled individually, by customs/health canada but a file is kept at health canada on how many letters have gone out, individuals, etc.
- Right now they are trying to "educate the public"
- The second letter is what is sent out on each order stopped after the initial "nicer" letter. If you have a third order held, you get a second letter again.
- Once you have had a package held (from anyone), you are put onto a list. Which explains why none of my orders from known ecig sellers get to me. (instantly to customs).
- Basically calling the number will do nothing for you. They will ramble off a premade message about health, tell you there is not much they can do, listen, and that's about it.
When I asked: "what is the status of this product, will it be approved, etc"
- I was told no supplier has sent in products to study... if a Chinese supplier is willing to submit a product, they would be more than happy to look at it.
- The amount of time it takes to study the product is just one month from the time it has been received, but the amount of time to come to a decision is unknown.
When I asked how the nicotrol inhaler can be sold over the counter, with nicotine cartridges, working in a similar manner to an e-cig minus the vapour, they did not have an answer for me... and pretended to write something down after asking "what was the name of that
device".
- I commented that it's easy to obtain, makes me dizzy if smoked too much, has just as much of a nicotine hit, the cartridge is much larger than an e-cig, and it's marketed as a stop smoking
device. I then added that it does NOT work... no comment.
When I asked why the case for it is not classified as a drug delivery system, I again received no comment.
When I stated that both my parents passed away from smoking and I did not want to die the same way... going into details about how much better I feel, I was told "We hear this hundreds of times a day, every day".
Sorry nothing more to comment on... and nothing really to help our cause... but figured I'd let you all know.
