Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Soros' Support of Marijuana Legalization Leads Philanthropies to Increase Support for Opposition
The story starts with financier and philanthropist George Soros. Since 1994, Soros has poured nearly $80 million into research and advocacy in support of marijuana legalization and other rollbacks of drug law, including ending criminal sentences for non-violent drug crimes. In a recent article in the Financial Times, Soros lambasted the federal “war on drugs” as “a $1 trillion failure” that has created a massive black market and shifted the burden of enforcement onto fragile production and transit countries like Afghanistan and Mexico. Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society donates roughly $4 million every year to the Drug Policy Alliance and its electoral arm, Drug Policy Action, each of which supports decriminalization and legalization efforts, as well as fighting incarceration, and projects such as needle exchanges and distribution of overdose antidotes to reduce the harm done by drug use.
Some observers doubt that the cannabis industry’s self-interest is enough to ensure a safe marketplace, or that the industry can be trusted to do the hard thinking about the effects of so radical an experiment. One concerned observer is John Krieger, executive director of the Achelis and Bodman Foundations. It was watching the influence that the Soros-backed groups had on the legalization debate that got him interested in exploring whether his philanthropy should wade in on the other side. Himself strongly opposed to legalization and medical marijuana, Krieger was surprised to find his board split on the issue. Some, like him, were opposed, but others were open to legalization while curious about the surrounding legal and medical questions: What would employers do with high employees? What would parents tell their children about whether to smoke pot? While “there was no consensus on the board about what our attitude toward legalization should be,” says Krieger, there was interest in playing a constructive role....