It’s bad enough in 2018 that the war on drugs still exists in the deluded minds of government higher-ups, just as some states begin to legalize recreational marijuana. And just as they do, Attorney General Jeff Sessions dropped the bomb that the Federal Government ended its leniency toward states’ rights for medical marijuana. Thus, we devolve as a nation. But the biggest blow to Americans was when Sessions’ DEA, although going after marijuana as a dangerous substance – in essence gave a Pharma opioid maker the rights to a partial national monopoly on synthetic THC!
What’s worse, it looks like the War on Drugs has just collided with Mad Medicine.
Herb.co reports:
A top-level advisor to Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants doctors to drug test all their patients, and to force users, they suspect of addiction into rehabilitation against their will. If Robert DuPont gets his way, drug testing could become a required part of your visit to the doctor.
DuPont, 81, is one of a small group of drug-policy “experts” Sessions invited to a closed meeting last month to discuss federal response to marijuana legalization. He is one of the most hardline and influential architects of the Drug War, having started out in the 1970s as a liberal on the drug control issue. But by the 1980s DuPont had taken a hard right turn, popularizing the long-debunked claim that cannabis is a “gateway drug.”
DuPont wants to force people into treatment for up to 5 years.
In an interview last year, DuPont pushed for expanding drug testing. His idea includes having physicians force patients whom they believe to have substance abuse problems to submit to drug tests, or lengthy stays in treatment facilities reportsNewsweek.
“Among other things, he proposed giving doctors the authority to compel suspected substance abusers into treatment against their will,” reportsThe Daily Beast. “Once in treatment, patients could face up to five years of monitoring, including random drug tests.”
“We want [drug screens] to be routine in all medicine,” DuPont said. “Doctors already check for things like cholesterol and blood sugar, why not test for illicit drugs? Right now the public thinks that if we provide treatment the addicts will come and get well … that’s not true. So let’s use the leverage of the criminal justice system.”
It is quite the understatement to say that America has been ejected right off that proverbial slippery slope. Can you imagine anything more invasive when modern medicine and drug laws are already so intrusive?
DuPont doesn’t even want to try treatment but views all drug use as a forbidden crime for which there must be government intervention.
In 2010, he penned a national model bill that “called on cops to test anyone stopped for suspicion of driving under the influence for all controlled substances, and arresting them on the spot if the slightest trace showed up — regardless of the amount. While the bill includes an exemption for drivers with prescriptions, cannabis users would still get busted. Medical-marijuana patients don’t have prescriptions (due to federal law), just doctor recommendations.”
That bill would not only punish legal medical marijuana patients in states which permit its use, but anyone for any substance that is legal to consume – even alcohol or medicine. Any failure of a bodily drug test would constitute possession of the substance!
So with DuPont’s ideas, we could look forward to a nation of forced drug testing, invasive extraction of bodily fluids, zero tolerance of substances including alcohol or cold medicine, instant arrests and federal charges of crimes for any deviation. Bye, bye 4th Amendment.
A few notable things about DuPont:
- He was the former drug czar to Richard Nixon.
- Vaguely warned The Washington Post the marijuana would have “horrendous” effects on society.
- Although serving for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) he later had ties to the drug-testing industry. (source)
- “In 2000, he appeared before the federal Food and Drug Administration, pushing for expanded hair follicle testing.” ! (source)
- Yes, it is and would be financially gainful for him to continue opposing friendly cannabis legislation. He was a ” paid consultant and shareholder in Psychemedics, which offered costly hair testing analysis.”
What else can we say? Whereas the state laws allowing cannabis freedom were a breath of fresh air in the midst of a war on freedom – we are heading back to the dinosaurs where the breath of aging, drug-war addled elites whispers into the ear of the Attorney General. President Trump is strangely absent from these conflicts.
