BOBBY P. SMYTH, PH.D., JOSEPH BARRY, M.D.
Department of Public Health & Primary Care,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin, Ireland
| Dear Editor: In recent years, authors of editorials in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs have taken a strong position in highlighting and objecting to potential conflicts of interest regarding alcohol policy (e.g., Babor, 2017). Given that there is now a legal cannabis industry in some countries, we will need to be vigilant in monitoring that industry’s efforts to influence cannabis policy (Humphreys et al., 2018). Beyond industry, we have become increasingly concerned regarding the very powerful influence of a small number of extremely wealthy individuals who are pushing for an end to the U.N. drug treaties and for the commercialization of drug use. Although debate is to be welcomed, we are concerned that one side of the discussion is being drowned out by a highly coordinated and very well-resourced campaign for liberalization of policy. Following its success in North and South America, its influence is becoming increasingly evident in Europe. In May 2018, the Green Party became the first Irish political party to embrace a policy of cannabis legalisation, which included support for commercial production, distribution, and sale of cannabis. The party backed up its proposal with a well-constructed policy document that referenced 11 reports (Green Party–Ireland, 2017). In nine cases, the sole or principal funder of the entities that produced the referenced material was the Open Society Foundations (OSF). This demonstrates the success that OSF has had in capturing the political narrative—of one party at least—while remaining very much in the background itself, as none of the reports were published in its own name. OSF is George Soros’s philanthropic vehicle, and it supports an array of social initiatives globally. Many of these initiatives are very admirable and backed up by solid scientific evidence, such as its support for increased access to medication-assisted treatment of opioid dependence. Mr. Soros authored an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal in 2010 titled, “Why I support legal marijuana” (Soros, 2010), in which he outlined his views on the advantages of regulating and taxing marijuana. Forbes magazine described Mr. Soros as the biggest drug reformer in the United States (Sorvino, 2014). That seems to be a major understatement of his global reach. Transparify is an organization that evaluates think tanks on fiscal transparency. When assessing OSF, it was categorized as “highly opaque” (Transparify, 2016, p. 16). Their report describes organizations in this lowest category of transparency as those that “still consider it acceptable to take money from hidden hands behind closed doors” (p. 6). |
OSF has established a phenomenal and powerful network of connections in support of Mr. Soros’s drug policy goals. In Britain, there is an All Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform (2017). We noticed that OSF is the first of just two funders of this group of MPs, thereby nurturing influence at the very heart of British Parliament. The grandly titled “Global Commission on Drugs Policy” is supported by OSF. It largely comprises retired very senior politicians, and they advocate for liberalization of drug policies. A non-exhaustive list of other nongovernmental organizations and academic institutions funded by OSF to produce reports on drug policy includes Transform, Release, the International Drug Policy Consortium, the International Drug Policy Unit in the London School of Economics, the Centre for Public Health and Human Rights at Johns Hopkins, the University of Essex’s Institute for Social and Economic Research, the Independent Committee on Drugs (recently rebranded as Drug Science), Health Poverty Action, Swansea University’s Global Drug Policy Observatory, and the Ana Liffey Drug Project (in Ireland). If Forbes is correct in stating that Mr. Soros had given more than $200 million to drug liberalization campaigns globally before 2014, does the influence bought with that phenomenal sum not merit some debate and discussion within the scientific community and in leading addiction science journals (Sorvino, 2014)? Certainly, there has been no such open discussion to date. We realize that many policy analysts and academics believe that Mr. Soros is correct on this issue. However, even those groups should be concerned that a single tremendously wealthy individual has been able to successfully buy the policy and academic narrative so comprehensively. Perhaps the next multi-billionaire might take a notion that vaccination is bad for public health and fund the “anti-vax” movement. Would that not be a concern (World Health Organization, 2019)? Mr. Soros’s money provides a financial incentive for scholars, institutions, and nongovernmental organizations to support his agenda. This appears to constitute the type of conflict of interest previously highlighted in editorials in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (e.g., Babor, 2017). As such, we argue that it should be clearly declared in all instances, and this has certainly not been happening to date. |
FOOTNOTE:
The above letter was released to a wider readership, being considered worthy of greater exposure, by Shane W. Varcoe, Executive Director of the Dalgarno Institute, Australia.
Source: www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au