Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says faith-based, 12-step and farm- or camp-centered applications ought to be a significant a part of the U.S. dependancy response. Right here, he visits the First Baptist Church meals pantry in New York Metropolis final 12 months.
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When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talks concerning the journey that led to his rising give attention to well being and wellness — and finally to his affirmation hearings this week for U.S. secretary of well being and human providers — it begins not with medical coaching or a background in analysis, however together with his personal dependancy to heroin and different medicine.
“I turned a drug addict after I was 15 years outdated,” Kennedy mentioned final 12 months throughout an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman. “I used to be addicted for 14 years. Throughout that point, if you’re an addict, you are residing towards conscience … and also you sort of push God to the peripheries of your life.”
Kennedy now credit his religion; 12-step Alcoholics Nameless-style applications, which even have a religious basis; and the affect of a guide by thinker Carl Jung for serving to him beat his personal opioid dependancy.
If confirmed as head of the Division of Well being and Human Companies after Senate hearings scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, Kennedy would maintain broad sway over lots of the largest federal applications within the U.S. tackling dependancy: the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, the Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse and the Substance Abuse and Psychological Well being Companies Administration.
Whereas campaigning for the White Home final 12 months, Kennedy, now 71 years outdated, laid out a plan to sort out the US’ devastating fentanyl and overdose disaster, proposing a sprawling new system of camps or farms the place individuals experiencing dependancy could be despatched to get well.
“I will convey a brand new business to [rural] America, the place addicts may also help one another get well from their addictions,” Kennedy promised, throughout a movie on dependancy launched by his presidential marketing campaign. “We will construct lots of of therapeutic farms the place American youngsters can reconnect with America’s soil.”
Folks with out housing in San Francisco in Might 2024. A movie launched by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential marketing campaign included a scene that appeared accountable methadone — a prescription treatment used to deal with opioid dependancy — for a number of the high-risk street-drug use seen on the streets of San Francisco.
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Some dependancy activists — particularly these loyal to the 12-step faith- and values-based restoration mannequin — have praised Kennedy’s method and are actively campaigning for his affirmation.
“RFK Jr is in restoration. He needs to broaden the therapeutic group mannequin for recovering addicts,” Tom Wolf, a San Francisco-based activist who’s in restoration from fentanyl and opioid dependancy, wrote on the social media website X. “I help him for HHS secretary.”
A give attention to 12-step and spirituality, not treatment and science-based remedy
However Kennedy’s method to dependancy care is controversial, described by many drug coverage specialists as dangerous, partly as a result of it focuses on the ethical dimension of restoration fairly than trendy, science-based treatment and well being care.
“He clearly cares about addicted individuals,” mentioned Keith Humphreys, a number one nationwide drug coverage researcher at Stanford College. “However when it comes to the plans he is articulated, I’ve actual doubts about them.”
In line with Humphreys, Kennedy’s plan to construct a community of farms or camps does not seem to incorporate services that supply correct medical therapies for critically in poor health individuals going through extreme dependancy.
“That is a threat to the well-being of sufferers, and I do not see any advantage in doing that,” Humphreys mentioned.
“I feel [Kennedy’s plan] could be an infinite step backward,” mentioned Maia Szalavitz, an writer and activist who used heroin and different medicine earlier than coming into restoration.
“Now we have spent the final 15, 20 years attempting to maneuver away from treating dependancy as a sin fairly than a medical dysfunction,” she mentioned. “We have spent a few years attempting to get individuals to take up these drugs that we all know minimize your loss of life threat in half, and he appears to need to go backwards on all that.”
The overwhelming majority of researchers, docs and front-line dependancy remedy staff agree that scientific knowledge exhibits drugs like buprenorphine, methadone and naloxone are recreation changers with regards to treating the deadliest avenue medicine, together with fentanyl and heroin.
The Biden administration moved aggressively to make medical therapies way more reasonably priced and broadly out there. Many specialists consider these applications are components within the dramatic nationwide drop in overdose deaths that started in 2023.
The Faces of Fentanyl wall shows pictures of People who died from a fentanyl overdose. It is situated on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.
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Kennedy, who studied regulation and political science, not well being care, earlier than turning into an activist on topics starting from prescribed drugs and vaccines to the American food plan, has remained largely silent with regards to science-based medical therapies for opioid dependancy.
His marketing campaign movie included a scene that appeared accountable methadone — a prescription treatment that has been used to deal with opioid dependancy for the reason that Seventies — for a number of the high-risk street-drug use seen on the streets of San Francisco.
In public statements, Kennedy has additionally repeated the wrong declare that the dependancy and overdose disaster is not bettering. The truth is, deadly overdoses have dropped nationally by greater than 20% since June 2023, in response to the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, falling under 90,000 deaths in a 12-month interval for the primary time in half a decade.
“What we now have largely heard from Kennedy is a skepticism broadly of medicines and a give attention to the 12-step and faith-based remedy,” mentioned Vanda Felbab-Brown, an knowledgeable on drug coverage on the Brookings Establishment, a Washington, D.C., assume tank.
“That appeals to lots of essential teams which have supported President Trump within the election. However we all know what is key for restoration and stabilization of individuals’s lives and lowering overdose is entry to drugs,” Felbab-Brown mentioned. “Sadly, lots of the 12-step applications reject drugs.”
She’s frightened that below Kennedy’s management, the Division of Well being and Human Companies may shrink or remove funding for science-based medical remedy and as an alternative give attention to spirituality-based approaches that seem to assist a comparatively small proportion of individuals who expertise dependancy.
Kennedy’s views on different science-based therapies, together with vaccines, have sparked widespread opposition amongst medical researchers and physicians.
Kennedy boosts an Italian mannequin for dependancy restoration that has confronted controversy
One other concern about Kennedy’s dependancy proposals focuses on his curiosity in a program for drug remedy created in Italy within the Seventies.
The San Patrignano group is a therapeutic rehabilitation group heart in Italy for individuals with drug addictions. The middle, which was based by Vincenzo Muccioli in 1978, acquired renewed media consideration after a 2020 Netflix documentary described alleged abuses. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now describes this system as a mannequin for restoration care in the US.
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“I’ve seen this stunning mannequin that they’ve in Italy known as San Patrignano, the place there are 2,000 youngsters who work on a big farm in a therapeutic heart … and that is what we have to construct right here,” Kennedy mentioned throughout a city hall-style look on the cable channel NewsNation final 12 months.
In line with Kennedy’s plan, outlined in interviews and social media posts, People experiencing dependancy would go to San Patrignano-style camps voluntarily, or they could possibly be pressured or coerced into accepting care, with a risk of incarceration for many who refuse care.
However the San Patrignano program has been controversial and was featured in a 2020 Netflix documentary that included photographs of individuals with dependancy allegedly being held in shackles or confined in cages. The farm’s present leaders have described the documentary as biased and unfair.
Kennedy, in the meantime, has continued to make use of this system as a mannequin for the camps he wish to construct in the US.
“I will construct these rehab facilities everywhere in the nation, these therapeutic camps the place individuals can go, the place our youngsters can go and discover themselves once more,” he mentioned.
Szalavitz, the writer and activist who’s herself in restoration, famous that the Italian program does not embody science-based medical care, together with opioid remedy drugs. She mentioned Kennedy’s fascination with the mannequin displays a scarcity of medical and scientific experience.
“It truly is nice to incorporate individuals who have private expertise of one thing like, say, dependancy in policymaking. However you do not develop into an dependancy knowledgeable merely since you’re somebody who struggled with dependancy,” Szalavitz mentioned. “You must have interaction with the analysis literature. You must perceive extra past your personal slender anecdote. In any other case you are going to wind up doing hurt to individuals.”
