The donation was made to the Drug Policy Action Committee to Tax and Regulate Marijuana. The committee is supporting Prop. 19, the November ballot initiative to legalize marijuana for adults over 21, allow small residential cultivation and permit local governments to tax and regulate marijuana sales.
"When marijuana is regulated and taxed like tobacco and alcohol, the benefits will be enormous: less crime, less violence in Mexico, control over the age of users and revenue for fiscally desperate California. Everybody wins," Harvey told XBIZ.
Harvey, the only listed donor to the committee so far, is also involved in family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention.
He also is president of DKT International, which distributes condoms and contraceptives to impoverished countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
In addition, Harvey is the chief sponsor of the Liberty Project, which raises awareness about free speech issues in the U.S.
A 2004 article in The Economist, called Harvey a libertarian who has long fought against censorship.
The article said that another one of his targets in America’s war on drugs, a conflict he says represents a greater threat to civil liberty than the war in Iraq.
The article concluded with a simple question, “Might a mail-order cannabis business be next on his list of ideas?”
