Canadian Customs/Health Canada Seized My Laser [Letter inside]

Tech_Junkie said:

So you think saying that you want to point a 1W laser in the open sky will get his laser back? :crackup: Good luck.

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Lol. Good point TJ. I thought that explanation sounded feasible until you said that.

rocket689 said:

Lol. Good point TJ. I thought that explanation sounded feasible until you said that.

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Thought the same *lol*

I'd say you are going to remove the guts and build a laser to cut balsa wood for making doll house furniture. Gather some BS photos of one of those homemade laser cutters, and doll house furniture. Throw them all in the same envelope. Start bitching about that they are limiting your freedom to make money over some bad press about a stupid laser company in the letter you send.

^^^^ That sounds like a plan...

Jerry

Like the OP, I received the exact same letter from Health Canada.

I just wanted to share the letter that I'm getting ready to send them:
imgur.com/a/LBuxn

Will post back with results, though I suspect it will probably be a while before I hear anything.

And just to be clear, it may look like I know what I'm talking about with regards to laser terminology and technology, but I assure you that I do not! It's probably full of errors, but most data I scraped from a variety of web sites that also seemed to know what they were talking about

Cheers,
EnigmaticSoul

EDIT: Fixed the typos in paragraph five.

Apprecaite the enthusiasm, but.

IMO you should have left out the bit about extracting your own diodes.... as if we didn't have enough negative attention from the 445nm fest with certain applaince companies.. This is the government you are sending letters too, if they actually care to read it, the bit about your justification for owning is popping balloons and melting plastic, already suggests a potential weaponized usage.

Not good. :tsk:

There must be an import crackdown by the Canadian
Customs...
I have 2 non Laser packages coming from China that
are both being looked at by Customs...
One since Aug 04 and the other since July 21 and we
haven't received any letters or E-Mails from them...

I've only had 1 package held up by customs in the
past 20 years... and they finally let that one through
after 6 months..

I find this quite strange...:undecided:


Jerry

lasersbee said:

...and they finally let that one through
after 6 months..

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WTH?? Why did they took your package for 6 months?

They claim on their own site that there have been NO reported cases of eye damage from a laser in Canada....

You should tell them that Tobacco and Alcohol kill way more people every year than laser radiation and that they should stop the import of those too whydontcha


Oh I almost forgot...
Cars, lighters, matches, steak knives, sharpened sticks, pens, uncooked pasta, and anything slightly acidic. Get any of those in your eye and your likely to have damage too...

Maybe we should ban importing anything more dangerous than wet string!

regalis said:

WTH?? Why did they took your package for 6 months?

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It took that long to convince them that the item
was legal to import into Canada and it all needs
to be done by registered Snail Mail....

Jerry

Unbelievable!
The customs sucks big times! I hope my package will get through the customs without these horrible problems :/
Though i think that i'll get the same problems --> the shipping lasts now exactly 2 weeks..

I've recently heard a few stories about Canada Customs starting to crack down on lasers. I think it has more to do with smuggling them into the US as easily as BC bud. US Customs are applying pressure through "official" channels to get Canada Customs to be tougher.
The problem with this lies in that Canada Customs bureaucracy prevents any intelligence from being applied to claims. They don't know enough about a subject and there will never be enough funding from the Federal government to foster anyone learning about it. So unless a particularly over-zealous employee takes the time to learn about it on his own time (and how many government type workers does that description apply to ?) and then fights the "system" to teach others they will never know anything more than what some high level office worker in Ottawa dictates in a memo instructing them what to do.
(I had a relative working for Customs for years. I know a couple of other people who still do. Might have to call in a favour soon to get some policy clarification concerning these things and have a package inspected personally.)
I hope you get some resolution soon.
I am watching this thread closely !

thanks a lot WL Steve!

Your brilliant marketing scheme has come around to bite you(and unfortunetly alot of others)on the ass.
Thanks for making it necessary for me to no longer be able to do GBs for our members north of the border. And for making it necessary to have products shipped in parts at more than double the cost. You rank right up there with the idiots who lase aircraft, police and thier patrol cars and people.

hk

^^^ couldn't have said it better...

Jerry

Thanks for contacting us. An operator will be with you shortly...



[Twistedprojects] hello???

for 1 hour...

On my snail mail it gives me this:

******** 2011 departure from outward office of exchange CANADA ******* 2011-08-31

on dx it says:
Invoice / Order #: *******
Date: 8/22/2011 7:59:05 PM
Payment: *******
Status: Shipped


why is it in the Canadian customs for a week for???? -.-

Twisted said:

Thanks for contacting us. An operator will be with you shortly...



[Twistedprojects] hello???

for 1 hour...

On my snail mail it gives me this:

******** 2011 departure from outward office of exchange CANADA ******* 2011-08-31

on dx it says:
Invoice / Order #: *******
Date: 8/22/2011 7:59:05 PM
Payment: *******
Status: Shipped


why is it in the Canadian customs for a week for???? -.-

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Have you never ordered from DX before? I have had my DX stuff sit at customs for 2-3 weeks before... Don't worry about it.