Los Angeles ? Two of the country’s leading tobacco companies have filed suit asking a federal court to stop California from airing several hard-hitting antismoking television and print advertisements.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Lorillard Tobacco Co. charge the state is misusing money from a 25-cent-per-pack tax that a 1988 ballot measure authorized to fund education, research and medical care related to smoking.

The suit, filed late Tuesday in Sacramento, names California and two state officials. The companies seek no financial damages, only an injunction to stop the advertisements, claiming that the intent of the ads is not educational.

The suit targets four ads in particular. One of them, titled “Rain,” shows cigarettes falling from the sky onto children in a schoolyard while an announcer says: “We have to sell cigarettes to your kids. We need half a million new smokers a year just to stay in business. So we advertise near schools, at candy counters, we lower our prices. We have to. It’s nothing personal. You understand.”

Such ads, the suit argues, violate the rules established when voters approved the ballot measure, called Proposition 99.

“They are using tax dollars to fund a campaign that is designed to vilify tobacco companies,” said Ellen Matthews, a spokeswoman for R.J. Reynolds.

In response to the suit, California’s Democratic Gov. Gray Davis said Wednesday that the ads worked and would continue.

“My message to Big Tobacco is this: So long as I am governor, the state of California will continue to tell the truth about your product: Smoking kills,” Davis said at a news conference.

Davis cited statistics that indicate smoking is declining in the state. He said per capita consumption of tobacco fell by 60 percent between 2000 and 2002, a sign that not only are fewer Californians smoking, but those who do are smoking less.

According to the lawsuit, the Department of Health Services ads “portray tobacco company employees and executives as loathsome persons motivated by cynicism, greed and malevolence. Their invented speeches express reprehensible motives and objectives. They are portrayed as unashamedly evil. All of this occurs with no disclosure that the scenes and scripts depicted are the invention of an advertising agency.”

The suit also raises constitutional issues. The ads could influence potential jurors in tobacco-related trials, a violation of the companies’ Seventh Amendment guarantee to a fair trial, it contends.

In addition, it argues that the way in which the tax money is being used violates the companies’ First Amendment rights.

“It is clear that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that requiring a person, or a company to pay for ads they disagree with, including those that ruin their reputations, violates their rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution,” a joint statement by the companies said.