There is much more to California's Proposition 28 than simply repealing the Proposition 10 tobacco tax. It's a matter of reversing a dangerous injustice perpetrated by self-absorbed celebrity filmmaker Rob Reiner against beleaguered smokers. Indeed, the knife of injustice cuts smokers even deeper by the mainstream news media either ignoring it or censoring the truth.

Reiner's Proposition 10, imposing a $.50 per pack tax on cigarettes and tobacco products, was narrowly passed by voters in 1998. But it was based upon deceptive information, false EPA studies and singling out tobacco in a discrimination-funded tax scheme to build a personal empire and a legacy on the backs of smokers, most of whom are low income people who can least afford it.

Worse, Reiner used the abused "it's for the children" mantra to get Proposition 10 passed, when in reality he is stealing $700 million per year from millions of smokers to privately fund nearly everything but matters dealing with tobacco, and with no government oversight. Indeed, Reiner is now the chairman of his elite bureaucratic commission and he's using the same tactic to fight Proposition 28 with lies and distortions in dramatic ads exploiting children on television.

Smokers, not the tobacco industry, are already paying for the national $206 billion tobacco settlement to pay for smoking related healthcare costs, most of which has been earmarked by state and local governments to fund everything but healthcare. The City of Los Angeles intends to use its share to pay off the hundreds of millions of dollars it faces in police corruption lawsuits.

Proposition 28 was funded by a tobacco retailer, not the tobacco industry. But it doesn't matter who funded the voter initiative because smokers certainly could not afford to get such a measure on the ballot. Nor could smokers afford to fight proposition 10 in the courts, who would certainly find the discriminatory tax to be illegal and/or unconstitutional.

It's frightening to realize how easy it was to slip Proposition 10 by the voters, simply because smoking has been branded as socially unacceptable. And it's even more frightening that the news media supported the lynch-mob mentality of anti-smoking zealots, while the usual defenders, including the ACLU, failed to protect smokers from unrelenting persecution and tax abuse.

This time, smokers must defend themselves by voting for Proposition 28. Clearly, all voters should recognize the dangers of persecuting and taxing classes of people. Innocent owners of firearms are under that gun. Overweight people are feeling the pressure. Caffeine consumers of coffee, tea and soft drinks are next. Unfortunately, the vast majority of us fall into at least one of these categories.