BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - North Dakota has not raised its tax on tobacco products since 1993 and the two largest cigarette makers want to keep it that way.
Campaign finance disclosure reports filed with the North Dakota Secretary of State’s office show Marlboro-maker Altria Group Inc. and RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. have contributed more than $860,000 to fight the tobacco tax increase that will appear on the Nov. 8 ballot.
The Raise It For Health North Dakota coalition, which includes the American Lung Association, wants to raise the state’s 44-cent per pack cigarette tax to $2.20. Taxes on other tobacco products, including liquid nicotine for electronic cigarettes, would increase from the current 28 percent to 56 percent of the wholesale purchase price, the group said.
Campaign disclosure reports show less than $7,000 has been raised by the coalition, which also includes Tobacco Free North Dakota, the North Dakota Medical Association and other groups.
Supporters say the additional tax could swell North Dakota’s treasury by about $50 million annually; the money would help pay for health-related programs and establish a trust fund to support health care services and programs for military veterans.
Opponents, including the Greater North Dakota Chamber of Commerce, argue the tax punishes retailers and unfairly targets low-income residents. North Dakota Retail Association President Mike Rud, who is among those heading the opposition effort, has called the proposed increase “an onerous user tax on a legal product.” Rud could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Kristie Wolff, tobacco control manager for the American Lung Association in North Dakota, said the supporters of the measure will fight the money donated by the tobacco heavyweights with education.
“No way can we fight big tobacco dollar for dollar,” she said. “We will focus on education efforts. Increasing tobacco taxes is a proven strategy for decreasing tobacco usage. That’s the reason they are fighting this.”
North Dakota ranks 47th among states in the amount of tax paid by smokers. Retailers have successfully fought off several attempts to raise the state’s tobacco tax in the past two decades, most recently in 2015 when the Legislature snuffed out a pair of tobacco tax-hike measures.
North Dakota voters passed a smoke-free law in 2012 that protects people from secondhand smoke in indoor public places and workplaces. That measure followed voters’ approval in 2008 of a ballot measure that pushed the Legislature to establish the North Dakota Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy and finance it with a portion of the state’s share of a national lawsuit settlement involving the nation’s largest tobacco companies.
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