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In 2015, the state legislature passed a law prohibiting minors from having or buying electronic cigarettes and all other electronic smoking devices. The same law also required that liquid nicotine be packed in child-resistant packaging.
State legislators then agreed that residents under the age of 18 should not use e-cigarettes, but lawmakers still have not asked smoking prevention groups to reclassify e-cigarettes into tobacco products.
Heather Austin is the Executive Director of Tobacco Free North Dakota, a non-profit organization whose goal is to restrict tobacco access in the state through policy change and awareness from the community. She said the group is drafting a bill that, in addition to raising the tax on tobacco, also asks legislators to consider tobacco products based on electronic cigarettes. She hopes she will be ready when the next legislative session begins in January.
Austin has always tried to discourage minors from picking up tobacco, she said.
"As these electrical products came out," she added, "it has become increasingly difficult, as you can imagine."
This year, Austin said he remains optimistic.
"Many of the lawmakers I've talked to are curious about what these electronic products are and what our youth rates are and how we talk about them to our schools," Austin said. "I always think it's a good sign – when they ask questions about a problem and seek knowledge, it helps them make better decisions about how to set up a policy."
She adds that the recent focus on e-cigarettes is also a source of motivation. On Wednesday, the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it would begin to intensify the regulation on large smoker companies in order to "forcefully deal with trends in youth use." The FDA sent letters to five major electronic cigarette companies last week, asking them to come back in 60 days with a plan to deal with "the widespread use of their products by minors".
Dr. Eric Johnson, chairman of the Board of Directors of Tobacco Free North Dakota, said the FDA was already considering electronic cigarette tobacco products.
"They are nicotine delivery systems, and nicotine is derived from tobacco," said Johnson. "It's difficult to synthetically create nicotine, so it's usually derived from tobacco."
Johnson believes that "electronic cigarettes are tobacco products," he said.
"I'm not aware that the state is deliberately ignoring electronic cigarettes as tobacco products, it's been so long since there has been a change in the tobacco tax."
The state has not updated this tax since 1993. "And electronic cigarettes were not widely marketed in 1993," Johnson said.
Understanding the tobacco tax
According to the State Tax Administration Division, North Dakota can tax tobacco products in three ways.
"Cigarettes cost 44 cents a pack," said director Myles Vosberg. "The other tobacco products that are billed are snuff and chewing product, snuff is taxed at 60 cents an ounce and chewing tobacco, etc., at 16 cents l." ounce."
The Tobacco Free North Dakota bill suggests the use of electronic cigarettes on a percentage of the wholesale price, Austin said. According to Johnson, his group and Austin's have repeatedly recommended that the state legislature increase its tobacco tax. In 2015, Tobacco Free North Dakota had a bill suggesting to the legislature to increase the tax on cigarettes to $ 1.54 per pack, and a Senate bill proposed to bring it to $ 2 a pack . At a poll in 2016, voters from across the state considered raising the cigarette tax to $ 2.20 a pack and raising the tax on all other tobacco products from 28% to 56%. The measure failed, with 62% of the votes against.
"I do not think it's a big secret, the state has money problems," Johnson said. "After some thought, some lawmakers think this could be a good way to generate income."
In 2018, the Tax Administration Division reported receiving approximately $ 26.5 million in tobacco and cigarette taxes, the lowest amount in six years. In 2017, the division reported approximately $ 27.4 million and in 2016, it received close to $ 29.1 million.
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