by Mark Souder

About the author: Mark Souder, a Republican congressman from Indiana, is vice chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Subcommittee on National Security.

Rolling Stone magazine noted in its May 5, 1994, issue that currency speculator and billionaire philanthropist George Soros gave the Drug Policy Foundation, one of many recipients of his “charitable” largesse, suggestions to follow if they wanted his assistance: “[H]ire someone with the political savvy to sit down and negotiate with government officials and target a few winnable issues, like medical marijuana and the repeal of mandatory minimums.” Keith Stroup, founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, told an Emory University audience in 1979 that medicinal marijuana would be used as a red herring to give marijuana a good name. Richard Cowan, writing...