Study funded by pro-drugs tycoon

A BILLIONAIRE US businessman part-funded the controversial report calling for cannabis to be legalised for medical use.

George Soros set up the Open Society Foundations. It is one of the funders of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform’s report.

Mr Soros, who is worth an estimated £18billion, is considered to have been instrumental in the softening of drugs laws in the US. His aim, according to his auto-biography, is to establish a ‘strictly controlled distribution network’ of legally-available drugs.

Mr Soros, a hedge fund tycoon, helped fund the campaign to legalise medical marijuana in the first US states in the late 1990s.

One of his foundation’s key aims is to change the perception of drug use around the world – treating the problem as a public health rather than a criminal issue.