Anyone have problems having vitamins seized by customs?

This came up on the proboards site, and I'm curious whether any of you have had this problem? Apparently people have had vitamin orders from the US seized because it was deemed to be too much for 'personal use' or because a particular vitamin was a higher potency than what is allowed in Canada.

This concerns me a little as I can't seem to find a Canadian distributor of dry vitamin A (water miscible) in a palmitate form or in a potent enough form. I can easily order it off the Vitalady or other American sites, but a person on the proboards site said that their 25,000IU vitamin A was seized as anything over 10,000IU requires a prescription. I can't find anything official on this, and according to my pharmacist the only prescription A in Canada is for injection. The person on proboards said she had ordered twice and once it was seized and once it wasn't. Anyone else have this problem?

If anyone knows a Canadian source for 10,000IU or 25,000IU dry Vitamin A, I'd appreciate it. I haven't been able to find the Country Life or Solaray vitamins anywhere in Canada.

Would this one be of interest to you?

Our water-miscible "dry" vitamin A comes in a small, easy to swallow capsule. Each capsule provides 10,000 IU of vitamin A as retinol acetate.

Yes, that would be great! I just discovered that Swiss Herbals carries a 10,000IU dry vitamin A in acetate form, is this the same one? I just have to find somewhere to order it now.

No it's not Swiss Herbals, it's actually BA but you have to order it from the broker in Vancouver to get the products only available in the US. I can PM you her info if you'd like.

I'm going to have a look into the Swiss Herbals product first, but if it ends up it's going to be difficult to get, I will check out BA. BA recently told me that they'd be making more of their American products available in Canada, so I wonder if they could ship them direct? Thanks Tracey! If I need that contact I will PM you.

I have been talking to the broker in Vancouver as she has Dry D from BA that we can't order if we select Canada. My mother had 2 bowel ressections done and can't absorb the D she needs to so am going to get her some. The broker told me that the Mississauga office of BA cannot ship anything that is not allowed on the Canada website but she can as she is a broker. I will be placing an order soon for my mom.

Just PM me if you want her info and by then I should have a good idea of what it is like to deal with her and more about shipping costs, etc.

I have been ordering vitamins from vitalady for years and have brought them over the border or have had them shipped directly to me without any issuse. I also buy other vitamins in the states all the time again without issue when crossing the border.

Thanks Holly, I don't know if this is just new that they are cracking down or something, but a couple of people have reported problems. I wish I could find whether there are official rules somewhere governing this. I'd hate to order a couple of hundred dollars worth of vitamins, only to have them seized.

It's also going to be a problem for me to find adequate vitamin D in Canada though too. The highest IU I can find from a Canadian source is 5000IU/day. It's looking like sooner or later I'm going to need American vits. I know there is a program for meds that aren't available in Canada where your doc can place an order through a special government access program, I wonder if they do that for high potency vitamins as well? I would guess though that I would have to be deficient to qualify, and I'd rather not let it get to that first.

I use the chewable vitamin D - I take 4 twice daily.

I have some quick dissolve ones, I'm just going to have to take 3, 3 times a day, but it would be a lot cheaper if I could just buy higher doses!