Robert L. DuPont

For more than 30 years, ROBERT L. DUPONT, M.D. has been a leader in drug abuse prevention and treatment. Among his many contributions he was the first Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (1973-1978) and was the second White House Drug Chief (1973-1978). Following this government career, in 1978 Dr. DuPont became the founding president of the Institute for Behavior and Health, Inc. (www.ibhinc.org), and in 1982, with his longtime colleague, Peter Bensinger, he founded Bensinger, DuPont & Associates.

Dr. DuPont has written for publication more than two hundred ninety professional articles and eighteen books and monographs on a variety of health-related subjects. His books include Getting Tough on Gateway Drugs: A Guide for the Family, A Bridge to Recovery: An Introduction to Twelve-Step Programs (written with John P. McGovern, M.D.) and The Selfish Brain: Learning from Addiction. In 2005 Hazelden, the nation's leading publisher of books on addiction and recovery, published three books on drug testing by Dr. DuPont: Drug Testing in Treatment Settings, Drug Testing in Schools, and Drug Testing in Correctional Settings.

His activities in the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), where he is a Fellow, include chairing the committee on forensic addiction medicine and having been a founding member of the Medical Review Officer Committee. He is also a Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and was chairman of the Drug Dependence Section of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) from 1974 to 1979.

Dr. DuPont maintains an active general psychiatric practice specializing in addiction and the anxiety disorders and has been Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Georgetown University School of Medicine since 1980. His recent books on anxiety disorders, published by John Wiley & Sons, include: The Anxiety Cure: An Eight-Steph Program to Getting Well and The Anxiety Cure for Kids: A Guide for Parents. These books were written with his two daughters, both of whom are mental health professionals. He was the founding president of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA).

Dr. DuPont graduated from Emory University in 1958. He received an M.D. degree in 1963 from the Harvard Medical School. He completed his psychiatric training at Harvard and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. DuPont worked for the District of Columbia Department of Corrections heading parole and half-way house services before founding in 1970 the DC Narcotics Treatment Administration (NTA), the city-wide addiction treatment program that was the model for the nation's unprecedented commitment to drug abuse treatment in the early 1970s. Dr. DuPont's signature role throughout his career has been to focus on the public health goal of reducing the use of illegal drugs.