Due to the fact that some US states including my home state if California are slowly but surely banning fluorescent tubes, I am starting to have worries that if I attempt to buy fluorescent lamps online that ship from out of state, they will get confiscated or intentionally destroyed during shipment. Does anybody who lives in US states that have passed fluorescent lamp bans have any experiences of lamps getting confiscated or intentionally destroyed during shipment as a result of purchasing the lamps online? For example, has anyone had any experiences of having high CRI T12 tubes being confiscated or intentionally destroyed during shipment after trying to purchase them online to have them shipped to a state where a high CRI T12 ban is already in effect?

I'm going to arbitrarily extend this question to Canada, but not at all.

For starters (oops, pun  ), the better part of all the fluorescent tubes I acquired were recycling centre finds, but even later down the road when I had to downsize I couldn't keep the longer lamps save for a handful of 4ft fixture and tubes. I'll mostly stick to < 2ft fixtures, for which I was able to amass plenty of spare tubes. Long story short I'm set for life, and possibly beyond LOL.

Though there's one exception. This thing:



It runs an F14T12, which are almost extinct at this point. Not being able to buy any spare, and 15in LED tubes being very hard to find, if they're made at all, is going to become an issue soon enough.

Yeah I already have a good stock of a lot of different fluorescent lamps (well except the 8 footers since they're so much harder to store) but most of the commonly used lamp types I already have some spares, and given how long fluorescent lamps last in residential use, probably enough for a few decades.

I suppose eventually I might run out of F32T8 lamps, I don't really keep a lot of those in stock but I suppose I might buy a case closer to the ban or I'll just end up converting the remaining T8 fixtures over to T12 or LED. Got some spare ballasts as well, seems like they still make them as the ones I recently bought at Home Depot had 2024 date codes on them.

Yeah F14T12s and F15T12s as well really disappeared from most stores now, I suppose a lighting or electrical supply will still have them. I still see them available online as well but for $30 a lamp. It turns out they do make LED tubes for the F14T12s but are a more niche thing you have to order online. I suppose you could also just modify the fixture for F8T5s or the LED F8T5s. 

Not really. I have plenty of fluorescent lamps for all the common lengths, except for 8fts for the same reason Joseph has. Along with PLs.

 I can still find almost any fluorescents at most retailers around here .

According to this website, it seems like Ohio does NOT have any active fluorescent bans at the moment.

See here:

https://insights.regencysupply.com/state-light-bulb-bans

Why would you still respond when your state has no active fluorescent bans at the moment?

 Sorry . I'm not trying to offend anyone . I'm just saying that yes , they're still available here but next to no one buys them anymore other than folks like us . Linear fluorescent , PL , CFL aren't nearly as popular as they were a decade ago . Last new large scale fluorescent install I saw around here was close to 10 yrs ago .  I LOVE mercury vapor , the last new mass install I saw was in the late 80's - early 90's . The 2008 ban didn't really kill much more than spot replacements  The incandescent ban happened earlier in the year and again removed lots of dusty stock from the shelves .  New HID installs are pretty much unheard of anymore other than for using up overstock and the occasional spot replacement . There hasn't been a new HID install here in a few years now .

 All these "bans" are doing is making it harder for us lighting nuts to find stuff to collect so if you want it , buy it while you can as it's only gonna get harder to find and WAY more expensive $$$  .

From Colorado here!
Yeah, pretty much the Batteries Plus (not that their tubes were the best quality) stopped restocking them, and put the remaining stock sale. Which sucks because the Sylvania tubes they occasionally had were okay. Nonetheless I got to pick up some BLBs and UV tubes (for PCB exposure project) at a nice discount.
Lowes and Home Depot still have pallets of halfway-decent GE tubes, and from what I know they're "grandfathered in" to sell off their old stock. There's a Home Depot near me that still stocks a few smaller watt T12s, but they're all Feit so... But I'll take what I can get with T12.

"For some reason", 2nd hand shops like Habitat for Humanity just keep getting more and more NOS stock, so I suppose I'll still have them for a bit.

Sadly, CFLs have pretty much disappeared off the shelves. Except the GU-24 that nobody really has fixtures for.
Now on the flip side, the recycle bin at my favorite Batteries Plus is getting filled with near fresh CFLs, so at least I can roll the "free" dice and pickup still-good CFLs.

Colorado law does claim that "you can't offer them for sale" but good luck inspecting my packages of quality, vintage tubes from eripoff and other sites.
Otherwise, I stockpiled decades worth of pretty much the tubes I use, expect to use and oddballers just in case I might want to use them. I use the heck out of F13T5, F15T8, F20T12.

EDIT

It runs an F14T12, which are almost extinct at this point. Not being able to buy any spare, and 15in LED tubes being very hard to find, if they're made at all, is going to become an issue soon enough.

I am an EE student... I may be able to design and make an F14T12 LED for you.

Colorado fluorescent ban starts the beginning on next year.

I think the local Lowes still had some fluorescent lamps last time I was there, but I really didn't really pay much attention when I walked past that section of the aisle.

the Home Depot near me went to selling basically all LED last year (only fluorescent lamps I saw there last time I looked was some F96T12 slimlines)
Yet they were still selling fluorescent fixtures...and the displays had fluorescent lamps in them.

ReStore doesn't accept donations of Fluorescent (though sometimes something will sneak through). Last few times I've been there, nothing but crap in the light aisle.

I have basically a lifetime supply of normal fluorescents, so not really looking for any more.
Only thing I need to get before the end of the year is a few types of aquarium/plant lamps (those I'll have to order online since stores never had them even before all this bans & LED crap.)

Hmm, interesting. Yeah I agree, it does look like the ReStore is starting to stop accepting them because I just went there today (picked up some GE F14T12's just because) and it does seem like there are lot less than before, which my last trip was 3 months ago. Guess I didn't notice it until I heard about the ban.

But I want to know about your Home Depot, because the nearest one to me sells only integrated LED fixtures (absolute hard pass) but has plenty of tubes. They still have boatloads of single-pin T12's which I thought were practically extinct by now.

@sdsw4:
ReStores in my region had pretty much gotten rid of fluorescents even pre-pandemic.
There was a time (especially before they were known as ReStore -- then called "Habitat Outlet" ) when you could find some cool stuff there, particularly the original store down in Denver.

As far as the local Home Depot, its mostly integrated LED crap for fixtures, but there were still some fluorescent last time I looked.
When they changed over to LED tubes, it just happened all at once... they had a decent selection of fluorescent & some Philips LED tubes, then those were all gone (no clearances or anything) and replaced with all LED of a different brand (Feit crap, I think.. can't even remember for sure, as I really pay little attention when I walk past the lightbulbs/tubs/etc aisle.) Then at some point some F96T12 fluorescent tubes appeared...I'm guessing those were probably a mis-order

Yeah, that's what blows about the LED tubes.
It seems everyone went integrated, and the last ones making LED tubes are simply making trash.

One of my local stores, Big R, recently switched to LED tubes. And when I see more dead LED tubes than I ever saw EOL fluorescents, it is clear what the problem is.
Meanwhile, my local pharmacy installed some integrated fixtures right on top of the old fluorescents, the "scars" from the tombstones are still in the reflectors. Those integrated lamps seem to fair rather well. Should get a pic for the gallery.

But one thing I do have to say about everyone going LED, at least we don't have to worry about fluorescent-induced UV damage anymore. But that could have been easily avoided.

I wonder if any of you in Colorado had problems with purchasing high CRI F40 tubes online.

The shipping cost is the obvious killer.
But I'm about to order some white deluxe tubes so I'll see how that goes.

In New Jersey, the only F40T12s I could find were Plant and Aquarium ones...

The ballast in one of the wraparounds failed (capacitor failure) so I went to get a new ballast but I couldn't find one I would be sure would be okay for the older Westinghouse lamps, so I went to go look for F40T12s and found none. So I just converted the fixture to F32T8s which actually works well, during about the 2 weeks a year it is used - No mercury issues, (but one was out out of the box) and great color. In July I went to replaced the other two Westinghouse lamps as I don't know how much longer my grandparents will live there, and I had to replace them with Plant and Aquarium F40T12s which are very pink, luckily that room is used about 1 day a year.