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Reports from Canada are saying that, despite electronic cigarettes being legal products, they are getting seized on their way into the country. Thus far, Canadian customs and Health Canada have failed to provide any legally significant justification for these seizures and appears to be engaging in little more than outright harassment against electronic cigarette sellers.

You can read the most recent coverage of the issue right here.

Currently, nicotine inhalers and electronic nicotine delivery devices in Canada aren’t considered medical or drug devices as long as they aren’t marketed with health claims and deliver less than 4 milligrams of nicotine per dose. In general, it appears that electronic cigarette sellers in the country are following these rules in an effort to avoid the very harassment they’re dealing with regardless.

According to Mitch Tarala, owner of Vapor Jedi, customs is stopping about one package a week with almost no reasonable justification. And what they do seize appears to be getting held much longer than it should given a total absence of laws being broken. According to Health Canada, it will continue to stop e-cig imports because the products lack market authorization — market authorization which is not required or obtainable under Canadian law as it stands.

Similar to the electronic cigarette industry in the U.S., in the absence of health claims, the market should be free to continue unabated. But again, similar to in the U.S., many officials and regulators seem more than willing to act against the industry without proper legal justification. At the moment, stopping imports is the single easiest ways to do this. The limits on what customs can claim “requires investigation” before it can be allowed to pass are virtually non-existent.

In Canada, things seems to be a little bit worse though. Businesses that appear to be acting entirely within legal boundaries are receiving cease-and-desist letters from Health Canada. One such letter to RainbowVapor.com failed to list any real reason the company is in violation of the law, but still claims that their transgression is “a serious concern that may result in more stringent enforcement action.”

Canada regulators have been acting against electronic cigarettes for longer than U.S. regulators. But depending on what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decides to do in regulating electronic cigarettes will decide whether American vapers pity Canadian vapers or envy them.