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Billionaire financier George Soros is a major supporter of the Drug Policy Alliance, which is a major financial backer of the Oregon marijuana legalization measure.

(The Associated Press)

A New York group tied to billionaire financier George Soros has contributed another $300,000 to the marijuana legalization campaign in Oregon.

Drug Policy Action has now reported giving a total of $930,000 this year to the fall campaign for Measure 91 as well as to the effort to qualify the marijuana legalization initiative to the ballot.

Drug Policy Action is the advocacy and political arm of the Drug Policy Alliance, a New York-based group that helped write the Oregon measure and was also active in legalization efforts in Washington and Colorado.

Soros, who has been involved in a number of liberal causes, is on the board of Drug Policy Alliance and donates about $5 million a year through his foundation to the alliance and its affiliated groups, according to a Forbes interview this week with Ethan Nadelmann, who heads the Drug Policy Alliance.

Soros has been working with the Drug Policy Alliance since the 1990s and gave $1 million directly to a 2010 marijuana legalization measure in California that voters turned down. Forbes said Soros' foundation has given about $200 million to efforts to change drug laws since 1994.

In an article that year for the Wall Street Journal, Soros argued that legalizing marijuana would reduce law enforcement costs, reduce the violence and influence of drug cartels and provide more money for youth education on drugs.

-- Jeff Mapes