RFK Jr. wants to fix the overdose crisis

Did Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Take drugs seriously? An analysis of his campaign for confirmation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Maia Szalavitz, an activist and author who used drugs before entering recovery, said she thinks Kennedy’s plan would be an enormous step backwards.

“We have spent the last 15, 20 years trying to move away from treating addiction as a sin rather than a medical disorder,” she said. He seems to want to go backwards on trying to get people to take up drugs that we know reduce death risk, while we have spent many years trying to get them to do it.

The vast majority of researchers, doctors and front-line addiction treatment workers agree that scientific data shows medications like buprenorphine, methadone and naloxone are game changers when it comes to treating the deadliest street drugs, including fentanyl and heroin.

In public statements, Kennedy has also repeated the inaccurate claim that the addiction and overdose crisis isn’t improving. According to the CDC, fatal overdoses decreased by more than 20% in the last six months, which was the first reduction in deaths in over a decade.

When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talks about the journey that led to his growing focus on health and wellness — and ultimately to his confirmation hearings this week for U.S. secretary of health and human services — it begins not with medical training or a background in research, but with his own addiction to heroin and other drugs.

His campaign film included a scene that appeared to blame methadone — a prescription medication that has been used to treat opioid addiction since the 1970s — for some of the high-risk street-drug use visible on the streets of San Francisco.

“What we have mostly heard from Kennedy is a skepticism broadly of medications and a focus on the 12-step and faith-based therapy,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on drug policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

That appeals to a lot of groups that supported Trump in the election. But we know what is fundamental for recovery and stabilization of people’s lives and reducing overdose is access to medications,” Felbab-Brown said. Many of the 12-step programs reject drugs.

She is worried that if Kennedy succeeds, funding for science-based medical treatment could be cut or the department would instead focus on helping a small percentage of people who experience addiction.

Source: RFK Jr. says he’ll fix the overdose crisis. Critics say his plan is risky

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“I’ve seen this beautiful model that they have in Italy called San Patrignano, where there are 2,000 kids who work on a large farm in a healing center … and that’s what we need to build here,” Kennedy said during a town hall-style appearance on the cable channel NewsNation last year.

According to Kennedy’s plan, outlined in interviews and social media posts, Americans experiencing addiction would go to San Patrignano-style camps voluntarily, or they could be pressured or coerced into accepting care, with a threat of incarceration for those who refuse care.

But the San Patrignano program has been controversial and was featured in a 2020 Netflix documentary that included images of people with addiction allegedly being held in shackles or confined in cages. The documentary was said to be biased by the farm’s current leaders.

He said that he plans to build rehabilitation centers and healing camps all over the country.

Szalavitz, the author and activist who is herself in recovery, noted that the Italian program doesn’t include science-based medical care, including opioid treatment medications. She said Kennedy’s fascination with the model reflects a lack of medical and scientific expertise.

It’s really great to include people who have had personal experience with something like addiction. But you don’t become an addiction expert simply because you’re someone who struggled with addiction,” Szalavitz said. You have to read the research literature. You have to understand more beyond your own narrow anecdote. Otherwise, you will wind up doing harm to people.

According to Humphreys, Kennedy’s plan does not include facilities that offer treatment for people with severe addiction.

“He clearly cares about addicted people,” said Keith Humphreys, a leading national drug policy researcher at Stanford University. “But in terms of the plans he’s articulated, I have real doubts about them.”

RFK Jr is recovering. Tom Wolf, a San Francisco-based activist who is in recovery from fentanyl and Opioid Addiction, supports him for HHS secretary.

Some addiction activists — especially those loyal to the 12-step faith- and values-based recovery model — have praised Kennedy’s approach and are actively campaigning for his confirmation.

Kennedy has made previous statements about his approach to recovery from addiction, promoting the concept of “healing farms,” where people struggling with addiction would live and work. Many who study substance-use disorders have expressed doubt about this approach as it focuses on the moral dimensions of recovery —- rather than harnessing medical best practices.

Kennedy was a heroin user for more than a decade, and he speaks about it frequently. In his second confirmation hearing on Thursday, he said that he had been in recovery for 42 years.

If confirmed as head of the Department of Health and Human Services after Senate hearings scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, Kennedy would hold broad sway over many of the biggest federal programs in the U.S. tackling addiction: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

“I became a drug addict when I was 15 years old,” Kennedy said last year during an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman. “I was addicted for 14 years. During that time, when you’re an addict, you’re living against conscience … and you kind of push God to the peripheries of your life.”

Kennedy advocated that people with substance-use disorders should be allowed access to addiction treatment with outdoor work, but not forced to go kicking and screaming.

Are Antidepressants and Heroin Different Universes When It Comes to Drug Abuse? A Conversation with Keith Humphreys

A study published in the medical journal the Lancet found significant withdrawal symptoms only affect about 1 in 35 people who use antidepressants. It is important to be in a doctor’s care when going off SSRIs and to taper off gradually.

“Antidepressants and heroin are in different universes when it comes to addiction risk,” says Keith Humphreys, who studies addiction at Stanford University. “In my 35 years In the addiction field, I’ve met only two or three people who thought they were addicted to antidepressants versus thousands who were addicted to heroin and other opioids.”

Kennedy said that members of his family have had a harder time getting off of the drug than they have getting off heroin.

He doesn’t have a medical degree, but he has voiced his opinions on the class of prescription drugs called SSRIs.