Favoured pothead sent to specialist? (9)
I believe the answer is:
preferred
'favoured' is the definition.
('prefer' can be a synonym of 'favour')
'pothead sent to specialist?' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'pothead' could be 'p' (head letter of 'pot') and 'p' is located in the answer.
'sent' could be 'referred' (referring is a kind of sending) and 'referred' is located in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for preferred that I've seen before include "choice" , "Liked better" , "singled out" , "Was partial to" , "Chose before others" .)