But none of the $735 million would go to close the deficit. Organizers argued that the tax would have less chance of passing if voters thought it would go into the state coffers, and said that their only goal here was cutting down on smoking. Raising the cost of tobacco has proved to be the most effective way of discouraging smoking, particularly among teenagers.

“The voters in this state are disinclined to give money — even tobacco money — to the Legislature to spend: they don’t trust them with the money,” said Don Perata, a Democrat and former president pro tem of the State Senate, who is the author of the proposition. “We’ve become such a damned antitax state that we’ve demonized any kind of tax.”

Still, the image of a $735 million windfall rushing in at a time when California is facing a three-week cut in the school year has proved, at the least, discordant. The editorial board of The Los Angeles Times, while proclaiming itself uncomfortable to be siding with the tobacco industry, urged voters to defeat it.

“It just doesn’t make sense for the state to get into the medical research business to the tune of half a billion dollars a year when it has so many other important unmet needs,” it said. And opponents have seized on this as one of their central arguments.

“Isn’t that a little strange?” said Michael C. Genest, a former director of finance for the state who worked as a consultant to the “No on 29” effort, noting that Mr. Brown had just announced the state’s latest budget shortfall. “It’s astonishing to me that someone would go to these lengths to have a major tax increase and none of it would go to the budget.”

At 87 cents, the cigarette tax here is about half the national average, and it ranks 33rd in the nation — down from the third highest in 1999. California is one of only three states that have not raised the cigarette tax over the past decade. About 12 percent of Californians now smoke.

Drawing on wealthy backers’ coffers, opponents of the proposition have hammered the proposal, warning that money raised would go out of state (which organizers call a complete fallacy) and would have no legislative oversight.