order non hybrid seeds LandRightsNFarming: Guest Post: Pee in the bottle profit: Drug Company Lobbyists Create Laws For Sellihg Drug Testing Service

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Guest Post: Pee in the bottle profit: Drug Company Lobbyists Create Laws For Sellihg Drug Testing Service




Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2013 16:45:16 -0700
From: davis4000_2000@yahoo.com
Subject: Pee in the bottle profit: Drug Company Lobbyists Create Laws For Sellihg Drug Testing Service
To: preparation2003@yahoogroups.com

 
This article originally appeared in the Nation Magazine. Click here to subscribe to the Nation.  This story was produced with support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
The annual Drug & Alcohol Testing Industry Association (DATIA) conference, held in 2012 in San Antonio, Texas, looks like any other industry gathering. The 600 or so attendees sip their complimentary Starbucks coffee, munch on small plates of muffins and fresh fruit, and backslap old acquaintances as they file into a sprawling Marriott hotel conference hall. They will hear a keynote address by Robert DuPont, who served as drug policy director under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Nothing odd about any of this until you consider that the main subject of the conference is urine.
Seventy-seven years old, DuPont adopts the air of a sprightly televangelist as he outlines what he calls "the new battle lines" in the war on drugs, one that "begins with kids." At the climax of his speech, DuPont offers "the new paradigm" of drug treatment: a program that one controversial Hawaiian judge administers to all drug-addicted probationers he oversees. "If they test positive," he says, his voice slowly rising into a high-pitched yell, "they go to jail that day! No discussion!… No discretion! To jail that day!"
As DuPont finishes his speech, the hundreds of drug-testing company representatives in the audience rise to give him a standing ovation.
DuPont is in an expansive mood following his speech. Since the 1980s, he has been in the business of selling drug-testing services to employers. As far as he's concerned, drug tests should be given to "anybody who receives a benefit," from unemployment insurance to welfare. "Test 'em all!" he exclaims. MOREHERE