THE BILLIONAIRES BEHIND THE PUSH FOR ISSUE 1

Soros, Lewis, Sperling Spend Money Where Their Beliefs Are

COLUMBUS - They are three very different men who have two things in common:
incredible wealth and an unshakable belief that the nation's war on drugs
is a lost cause.

With more than $9 billion among them, George Soros, Peter Lewis and John
Sperling do far more than express their opinions. They've spent millions on
campaigns targeting get-tough drug laws in one state after another.

These distant tycoons have marched into Ohio with a proposed constitutional
amendment on the Nov. 5 ballot. Their plan would spend $247 million over
the next seven years to send thousands of nonviolent drug offenders into
treatment programs instead of state prisons or county jails.

Supporters of Issue 1 call their billionaire backers crusading
philanthropists willing to tackle a social issue that's paralyzed policymakers.

"The war on drugs is a disaster, and politicians are unable, really, to
move forward with effective reforms," said Ethan Nadelmann, director of the
Drug Policy Alliance and a spokesman for the three men. "We think the
public is significantly ahead of the politicians."

Opponents call their plan too costly and dangerous for Ohioans and describe
them as rich conspirators secretly plotting to legalize drugs.

"I think their amendment will destroy what's working in Ohio," said Sharon
Keys, director of outpatient treatment for the Hamilton County Drug Court.
"I don't think they're nave. I think they just don't care."

Where Issue 1 is concerned, the three say little, relying on a team of
campaign consultants and spokesmen to do their talking for them.

Even the nation's drug czar, John Walters, can't get his foot in their door.

"We've made requests, especially with Mr. Soros, to meet with them
privately," said Mr. Walters, officially the director of the White House
Office on National Drug Control Policy. "I'd like to persuade them that
what they're doing is not in the public's best interest."

Mr. Walters' comments show just how fundamentally Mr. Soros, Mr. Lewis and
Mr. Sperling have altered the national debate on drugs.

The drug czar, as a matter of policy, ignored groups trying either to
legalize drugs or water down sanctions. To do so, Mr. Walters said, would
simply make such groups appear more credible.

All that changed in 1996 when the three men backed a successful California
ballot initiative allowing marijuana use for medical reasons.

Since then, the wealthy trio have underwritten 16 other winning drug policy
campaigns. Voters have passed medical marijuana laws in Alaska, Colorado,
Maine, Nevada, Oregon, Washington state and the District of Columbia.

Two separate issues rewrote drug forfeiture laws in Utah and Oregon. Drug
treatment initiatives similar to Ohio's Issue 1 were approved by Arizona
voters in 1998 and in California in 2000.

Most of the $4.2 million spent help pass California's drug treatment
campaign came from these three men. In Ohio, they provided most of the $1
million spent to get more than 700,000 petition signatures to put Issue 1
on the ballot.

The California and Ohio efforts also drew the support of another wealthy
individual, Richard Wolfe.

Director of a California-based high-tech consulting firm, Mr. Wolfe is an
Ohio native and relative of the Wolfe publishing family that owns the
Columbus Dispatch newspaper.

Mr. Wolfe has spent $200,000 to support the California initiative and
donated another $200,000 for the Issue 1 petition drive in Ohio.

"No state legislature can realistically push for drug liberalization in any
way," he said. "Any legislator who proposes anything like this gets
targeted in the next election as soft on crime."

He also believes Ohio's drug laws aren't fairly enforced.

"There are drug courts in Ohio, but for the most part if you are black or
Hispanic or poor, too bad, you're in prison," Mr. Wolfe said.

While he insists that the mission of Issue 1 is not to legalize drugs, he
said that's an idea he supports.

Although he has donated a substantial amount of money, Mr. Wolfe does not
consider himself one of Issue 1's leaders. He said Mr. Soros, Mr. Lewis and
Mr. Sperling are the ultimate decision-makers.

"They don't call me and ask, 'should we do this?' " he said.

So who are these people?

Financier

Born into a Jewish family in Hungary in 1930, George Soros survived the
1944 Nazi occupation with his own street smarts and the help of false
papers his father created for his and other Jewish families.

Coming to America in 1956 with about $4,000 in his pocket, he built a $7
billion personal fortune by betting on the value of money in currency
markets. In 1992 he made more than $1 billion when he gambled the British
government couldn't protect the value of its pound sterling.

In a 2001 interview for National Public Radio he said his aching back
helped guide his investment decisions. If something was wrong with his
portfolio, "my back seemed to know it before my brain did," he said.

Retired now, Mr. Soros runs a network of private foundations that have
given more than $2 billion to help support open societies and capitalist
governments in eastern European countries.

"He's probably been the single greatest supporter of human rights positions
in the world," Mr. Nadelmann said. "Drug policy reform is about 2 percent
of his charitable giving.

"When communism fell he began looking at his own country and asked the
question is the U.S. truly an open society," he added. "Basically the view
is the war on drugs is doing more harm than good, and dealing with drug
abuse mostly through the criminal justice system is a mistake."

Insurance King

Cleveland native Peter Lewis turned the insurance company his father
co-founded into Progressive Inc. the nation's fourth largest auto insurer.

Most Ohioans know his company by its television commercials, in which
Progressive promises to share competitors' rates with customers.

Worth an estimated $1.3 billion today, Mr. Lewis has given $50 million to
New York's Guggenheim museum and another $55 million to Princeton
University, his alma mater.

He's no stranger to strong opinions. After he gave $36.9 million to Case
Western Reserve University to build a business school in his name, he
announced the project was being mismanaged and promised to boycott all
Cleveland charities until the university board was restructured.

He also was arrested two years ago in a New Zealand airport when
drug-sniffing dogs alerted customs agents to the marijuana in his
briefcase. Mr. Lewis pleaded guilty and was released after giving an
undisclosed amount of money to a drug treatment center.

In a story about his life published by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Mr.
Lewis said drug laws are racist because blacks get harsher penalties than
whites. He also said he wants drugs legalized and regulated like alcohol.

University Founder

John Sperling made his fortune by creating the University of Phoenix, a
for-profit school catering to adult professionals who want career-enhancing
degrees.

With evening classroom programs in 22 states and on the Internet, Mr.
Sperling made most of his $1.1 billion when he took his company public in
1994. He has said he started taking on other issues to fight "boredom."

Besides his drug reform efforts, Mr. Sperling is also known for spending
millions on a company called Genetic Savings and Clone that he hopes will
someday clone family pets for profit. The idea was born out of his personal
desire to re-create his 15-year-old pet dog, Missy, after she dies.

"The war on drugs is a war against the minority poor," he told Fortune
magazine in April. "And it's a welfare program for cops."

The Opposition

While Mr. Walters says issues of fairness toward the poor and minorities
need to be addressed, he disagrees with their other claims.

"Basically they suggest our prison system is locking up low-level
offenders, and that's ludicrous," he said. Mr. Walters said less than 2
percent of drug offenders in prisons nationwide are jailed for simple
possession. Of that 2 percent, he said, most were charged as traffickers
but pleaded to lesser offenses.

Mr. Walters and other Issue 1 opponents point to Mr. Lewis' and Mr. Wolfe's
comments to underline their accusations that Issue 1 is more of a first
step to decriminalize drugs than a true effort to expand treatment.

"Their goal here, I think, is that they want to legalize drugs in the
United States," Mr. Walters added.

Issue 1 supporters say the legalization claims are simply not true.

"We're not a legalization organization," Mr. Nadelmann said. "Our mission
is to reduce the dual harm of drugs and drug policies."

"Although some of our members may favor legalization, that is not what this
is trying to do," said Dave Fratello, the campaign's legal director. "We
don't think the support exists for legalizing drugs, but there is a
majority in favor of some middle ground proposals."

The Campaign

Though they've had numerous successes in other states, opinion polls show
Ohio voters may hand the drug policy alliance its first big defeat. The
ballot summary voters will read Nov. 5 prominently mentions the $247
million cost for expanded drug treatment over the next seven years.

While Issue 1 supporters argue millions more would be saved in reduced
prison, jail, court, police and health and welfare costs, those savings are
not mentioned in the ballot language.