Tobacco.org

• Higher tobacco tax, bar smoking ban on North Dakota agenda 

North Dakota’s newly formed anti-tobacco committee wants a $2-a-pack state cigarette tax and a smoking ban in all public places, an early draft of its agenda shows.

BISMARCK – North Dakota’s newly formed anti-tobacco committee wants a $2-a-pack state cigarette tax and a smoking ban in all public places, an early draft of its agenda shows.

The idea of raising North Dakota’s cigarette tax, which is now 44 cents a pack, has not come up in the 2009 Legislature. The tax has not changed since 1993.

Any state tobacco tax increase would come on top of a newly increased federal tobacco excise tax, which jumped this month from 39 cents to $1.01 a pack.

The committee’s work has been the recent focus of a money fight in the North Dakota House. Republican lawmakers argue the panel is unnecessary, even though voters endorsed a November ballot initiative to establish it. Measure 3 won approval from 54 percent of the voters last fall.

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