By Rob Port | Watchdog.org North Dakota Bureau – August 3, 2015

BISMARCK, N.D. — A state agency created by voters to combat tobacco use has lately turned toward opposing vaping — or e-cigarette — sales and use.

One state lawmaker is wondering whether that crosses a legal line.

In a letter to Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem dated July 31, Rep. Mike Schatz, a Republican from New England, asks for a legal opinion on the matter.

“Money from the tobacco settlement is being spent by the North Dakota Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy to discourage the use of e-cigarettes in the form of literature, verbal communication, and advertising,” the letter obtained by Watchdog states. “I am concerned this activity constitutes the use of state dollars for a purpose that has not been approved by the Legislative Assembly.”

A message left for the Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy, which also operates as BreatheND, was not immediately returned.

A search of the organization’s website turns up numerous publications of anti-vaping viewpoints. In a recent news article about state law prohibiting the sale of vaping products to minors under 18, center executive director Jeanne Prom described vaping products as containing “toxins” that “aren’t safe.”

The center was created by voters approving Measure 3 on the 2008 ballot and funded by the state’s share of tobacco settlement dollars. The language of the measureapproved by voters mentions tobacco repeatedly, but it doesn’t mention vaping or e-cigarettes.

“I don’t see the words vaping or the words e-cigarettes at all in Measure 3,” Schatz told Watchdog in an interview. Schatz says he doesn’t think the law justifies the center’s opposition to vaping, and that if the attorney general finds otherwise he would back legislation to clarify the agency’s mission.

“That’s something with the passage of Measure 3 and the elimination of smoking in all public places indoors, we kind of thought that was the mission,” he said. “I didn’t think vaping was the mission. I thought vaping would help people to quit smoking.”

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