DuPont, Robert

Robert L. DuPont (1936-) was born in Toledo, Ohio. He is widely considered to be a pioneer in drug policy, having served as a principal drug policy advisor for Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter. His career was shaped in large part by experiences working with heroin addicts in the criminal justice system, and that led him to champion drug testing as a way to identify and treat substance abuse disorders.

Inspired by Karl Menninger's The Human Mind at age 14, DuPont set his sights on becoming a psychiatrist. He graduated from Emory University in 1958 and Harvard University Medical School in 1963. For his residency training, DuPont went to the Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital and Massachusetts Mental Health Center at Harvard Medical School (and worked for ...