Initiative campaigns targeting smokers of legal and illegal substances in Missouri feature political competition between big and small tobacco companies and a proposal to legalize marijuana financed by a not-for-profit group that isn�t disclosing donors or spending.

The Cannabis Restoration and Protection Act campaign proposes a constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana and prohibit special excise taxes on pot and any laws limiting its production and sale. It is promoted on a website that seeks donations through PayPal to fund printing, travel, legal fees and other costs for what organizer Nick Raines of Kansas City said Monday is an otherwise all-volunteer effort.

Unlike most other initiatives, the campaign has not reported donors or spending to the Missouri Ethics Commission. Instead, costs are being paid by the Cannabis Restoration & Protection PAC, incorporated for $25 by Mark Pedersen of Kirkwood. Raines directed questions about the financing effort to Pedersen, who did not respond to an email seeking an interview.

�The campaign is funded by everyone,� Raines said. �It is volunteers, basically. We are doing really well, and at last count we were more than halfway there.�

An initiative to change the state constitution needs about 160,000 signatures from registered voters spread across six of the state�s eight congressional districts. A proposed statutory change requires about 100,000 signatures. Signatures must be submitted by May 8.

Jack Cardetti, spokesman for the medical marijuana proposal from New Approach Missouri, said Raines� campaign is skirting state ethics laws. Under state law, groups organized to support statewide ballot measures must file an initial report within 15 days after they start to raise or spend money.

�That�s not really an open legal question,� Cardetti said.

Betsy Byers, director of business services for the Missouri Ethics Commission, said the commission has no authority to regulate not-for-profit corporations formed for political purposes. But once they begin spending money, they need to form a committee and follow Missouri campaign finance law.

�We can�t initiate it,� Byers said. �Upon receipt of a complaint, we would have the authority to investigate and bring them in front of the commission.�

New Approach Missouri�s proposal would allow medical marijuana for a limited number of conditions and tax pot for veterans� services. On Friday the committee reported raising $308,135 in the last three months of the year, ending December with $266,309.

Dan Viets of Columbia, secretary of New Approach Missouri and Missouri coordinator for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, said the limited plan is much more likely to win voter approval. �Missourians are not ready to support a broad legalization bill at this point no matter how much we wish it were otherwise,� he said.

Raines� initiative would also cleanse the criminal records of marijuana offenders and bar the use of smoking while driving as the sole basis for an intoxicated driving charge. It also includes language defying federal laws against marijuana and prohibiting state and local law enforcement from enforcing those laws.

Raines is the past president of the Kansas City NORML organization, but the group was decertified under his leadership for failing to adhere to organization directives. A plan to tax marijuana and limit its use will only bolster the black market, Raines said.

Viets said there is no antagonism between the groups.

�There is no secret I wish that law could pass, but I just think it won�t,� he said.

Tobacco smokers are the target of competing tax proposals that have put RAI Services Co. in Winston-Salem, N.C. � the parent company of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. � on the same side as early childhood health and education advocates and lined up small cigarette makers on the side of an initiative that would support transportation.

The Raise Your Hands For Kids committee, which supports adding 60 cents per pack to the tax for cigarettes, raised $1.06 million in the last quarter of the year, including $1 million from Reynolds. The measure also includes a 67-cent per pack fee on cigarettes made by small companies that have not signed onto the 1998 national tobacco settlement. The tax would pay for early childhood education and health programs and smoking cessation programs for youths and pregnant mothers.

�We have been trying to raise money for over a year now, and we are happy to accept contributions from anyone who has the same goals as we do,� campaign spokeswoman Linda Rallo said.

The 67-cent fee would close a loophole in state law that allows some cigarettes to be sold for far less than major brands, she said.

A lawsuit filed Friday challenges the ballot language written for the Raise Your Hands for Kids proposal, charging it is misleading and insufficient. The lawsuit won�t delay the petition process, Rallo said.

The Missouri Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association is financing a petition drive to add 23 cents per pack to the tax for cigarettes and increase the tax on other tobacco products to 15 percent. The association�s political action committee raised $270,214 in the final quarter of the year, including large donations from small tobacco companies.

The transportation funding proposal includes a provision that would repeal the new tax if any other tax on tobacco was certified for placement on a future ballot. Ron Leone, executive director of the association, said the smaller companies are protecting their market.

�The people need to understand when it comes to this issue, big tobacco is bankrolling an outrageous and unfair 750 percent tax increase solely to put their value brand competition out of business,� Leone said.