Where there are Drugs, as in Georgia, look for Soros

The Beckley Foundation, one of many Soros-funded drug legalization outfits, based just outside of Oxford, England, put out a report in May 2008 titled "Drug Control in Georgia: Drug testing and the reduction of drug use." In this report, the Beckley Foundation praised the drug policy of Georgian President Mikheil Sakaashvili, while criticizing former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze.

"The former First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, initiated harsh legal measures and public campaigns against drug users in the 1970s," said the report, quoting another Soros-funded outfit, Human Rights Watch. The Beckley Foundation noted that there were "promising changes under President Mikheil Sakaashvili", who has "announced the possibility of shifting the focus of drug policy away from the predominantly law enforcement orientation." In other words, the beneficiary of Georgia's Soros-funded "Rose Revolution", Sakaashvili, may well have promised Soros an eventual legalization of drugs in Georgia. Just imagine what that would mean to Russia, already heavily affected by the deluge of heroin coming up from Afghanistan!

The Beckley Foundation's co-director, Mike Trace, former UK deputy drug czar, was brought in as Head of Demand Reduction at the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime in Vienna in January 2003. But he was forced to resign from his post within eight weeks, following the release of information from documents obtained by the Hassela Nordic Network, a Sweden-based group opposed to liberalization of drug laws, which showed that Trace was involved in an operation, funded by billionaire George Soros, to undermine the international conventions on drug-trafficking which were to be reviewed at a UN meeting to be held in Vienna in April 2003.

Hassela Nordic Network pointed out that, in a September 2002 letter to Aryah Neier, President of the Soros-funded Open Society Institute (OSI), Trace described his role as follows: "In terms of my involvement, I think it would be of most use in the early stages providing advice and consultancy from behind the scenes, in light of my continuing role as Chair of the European Monitoring group, my association with the UK Government and some work I am being asked to put together by the UNDCP [United Nations Drug Control Program] in Vienna. This 'fifth column' role would allow me to oversee the setting up of the agency (I already have good quality individuals in mind with whom I could work in confidence on this), while promoting its aims subtly in the formal governmental settings."

The "agency" Trace was referring to here was Release, a London-based group, which was fronting for Trace and OSI in running an initiative, privately referred to as Project X or "the London initiative" but officially called "Forward Thinking on Drugs," aimed at promoting alternatives to the UN drug conventions prior to the Vienna meeting. Australia's own Cheryl Kernot was appointed in December 2002 to head this initiative. The total budget for this initiative was set at US $405,000. Funding was from Soros and from various European foundations with similar views.