Financial Support by Billionaires for Research and Policy Analysis Should Be Subject to Disclosure Rules

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

Filed under: Australia,Political Sector :

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