People are always trying to buy contact lenses without a current prescription. It seems that the effort involved in trying to find somewhere that will sell you contacts with no prescription is worth more than the time it would take to go and get your eyes checked out and get an up to date prescription.
So let’s assume that you’re one of those people who simply must get their lenses without a prescription. You’ve probably not found it so easy, right? You’ve tried a few places online, but they all ask you for a prescription. If you’ve been searching online then you’ve probably heard about Canada. Canada, it seems, is the one place in the world where you can buy contact lenses without a prescription. Right? Wrong. Or rather, not quite right, and not completely wrong.
I thought it was time to find out the truth so I spoke to the Canadian health department and this is what I was told:
If you live in Canada then you must have a prescription to buy contacts. This is true if you’re buying from a Canadian outlet or buying from outside Canada, perhaps from the web.
A Canadian business is not allowed to sell contacts without a prescription to anyone, whether they are in Canada or not.
This pretty much rules out Canada as far as buying lenses is concerned, if you don’t have a current prescription. It’s essentially the same as, for example, the UK or the USA.
So just what is the big deal about Canada and contacts? Where Canada differs from some other countries is in the way it treats colored contact lenses. In Canada, colored contacts are not considered to be medical devices and so do not come under the same rules and regulations as ‘normal’ lenses. So it is in fact true that you can get contact lenses without prescription from Canada, provided that they are plano, or of zero strength.