Sessions’ Weed Adviser Wants Doctors to Drug-Test Everyone

Dr. Robert DuPont practically invented the term ‘gateway drug’ in the 1980s. Now he’s back with radical ideas on how to fight the war on drugs.

By Christopher Moraff

A top adviser on marijuana policy to Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants to see doctors make drug testing a routine part of primary care medicine and force some users into treatment against their will, he told The Daily Beast.

Dr. Robert DuPont was among a small group of drug policy experts invited to a closed-door meeting with Sessions last month to discuss federal options for dealing with the rapid liberalization of state marijuana laws. California became the sixth state to allow the sale of marijuana for recreational use on Jan. 1.

DuPont, 81, is one of the most influential drug warriors of the past century. He began his career as a liberal on drug control in the 1970s, calling then for the decriminalization of marijuana possession and launching the first U.S. methadone treatment program for heroin in Washington, D.C. in 1971. By the 1980s, he shifted to the right, popularizing the claim marijuana was a “gateway drug.”

At the Dec. 2017 meeting with Sessions, DuPont was slated to present on “the effect of marijuana on drugged driving,” a topic on which he has proposed some radical ideas.

A national model bill he helped write in 2010 called on law enforcement to test anyone stopped for suspicion of driving under the influence for all controlled substances, and arresting them if any trace at all shows up in their system—regardless of the amount. While the bill includes an exemption for drivers who consumed a drug pursuant to a prescription, it would not apply to medicinal marijuana users since doctors are not currently allowed to prescribe pot, only offer a recommendation for its use.

The bill’s language makes clear that these people will still face sanction even if they live in a state where medical marijuana is legal. 

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Source: The Daily Beast