President Donald Trump's health and human services nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been under scrutiny for his views on vaccines, agriculture, abortion, and more, has been criticized for addressing one of the nation's health crises. His views on healing have received much less attention.
Before joining Trump's team, Kennedy campaigned for the president with a plan to treat addiction by creating “wellness farms” funded by tax revenue from federally legalized marijuana sales. Ta. “I'm creating these wellness farms so they can not only stay off illegal drugs, but get off legal drugs,” he said at a virtual event during his campaign, “Latinx Town Hall.” He said he was called.
Kennedy himself struggled with addictions in his youth, including cocaine and heroin. He announced his faith and commitment to his anonymous 12-step program as his saving grace. Kennedy is also a strong proponent of clean living, and the Addiction Treatment Wellness Farm also serves people looking to treat other medications like antidepressants and other medications like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). I imagine it will be treated.
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Drug addicts in Kensington, Philadelphia are taking over the street corners. (Meg Myers/Fox News Digital)
Wellness farms aren't a completely novel idea. They are based on a framework known as the “therapeutic community” model, compared to drug-based treatment strategies such as methadone and buprenorphine therapy. Severe cravings from opioids often result in addicts relapsing. Many in the medical community, including researchers at the National Institutes of Health, consider such drug-assisted treatment to be the gold standard for addiction treatment.
The AA also warns against the use of drugs like buprenorphine to treat addiction.
Kennedy actually visited two locations consistent with this framework for a documentary he made about the addiction crisis while running for president. Their addiction treatment framework, like Kennedy's Wellness Farm, focuses on peer-to-peer recovery by putting addicts to work and reteaching them how to live in society without drugs. Kennedy says that at his rehabilitation farm, addicts grow organic crops, receive training in trade skills and learn other ways to live in society without using illegal drugs.
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One of the programs Kennedy visited in his documentary about dealing with addiction was also a farm. There, men tend to livestock, learn how to operate tractors and repair barns. Their days also consist of meditation, 12-step meetings, and yoga, but addicts must go off-site to receive treatment and take medications such as antidepressants and buprenorphine. is not allowed.
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The program, called Simple Promise Farms, is located in rural Texas. According to The New York Times, which spoke with the program's founder Brandon Ginn, Simple Promise is not staffed by licensed therapists or health care providers in the field.
Gin said new york times “It's these peer-to-peer conversations where important work is being done, not with your therapist or sponsor or mentor, but from the shared experiences of those struggling with addiction.”
The 12 Steps evolved from what is now a global peer-to-peer addiction support group known as Alcoholics Anonymous, founded in the 1930s by a New York stockbroker named Bill W. and an Ohio-area surgeon named Bob S. It happens. (Photo by John Van Hasselt/Corbis via Getty Images)
Keith Humphreys, a psychologist and drug policy expert at Stanford University, says there's nothing wrong with the “therapeutic community” model, but he sees evidence that it helps people wean themselves off harmful and addictive drugs. stated that they questioned the evidence-based treatment exclusions provided. heroin.
“Considering how much is known, much more than what is described is similar to [an] 18th century retreat. Given how much we've learned about the nature of the condition, what psychotherapy can do, and what medicine can do, why don't we have it? why don't you want that? ” Humphries asked.
“That's not to say it doesn't benefit anyone,” Humphries added. He points out that the complex nature of addiction is challenging to deal with without modern treatment advances, with city dwellers lacking the desire or resources to relocate to distant farms for treatment. suggested that it might.
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Humphries said patient-refusal programs that refuse patients to take antidepressants or other medications are actually very common in the United States. Its success rate was low.
“George Vaillant conducted a study of 400 consecutive admissions [to the Lexington program]and then 400 people relapsed, “Humphries noted.'' So, of course, we know a lot more than we did then. So why not take advantage of it? ”
VITA Recovery, Addiction Therapy Luxury Treatment Center, Biscayne Boulevard, Miami, FL. (Photo: Jetty Greenberg/Universal Image Group via Getty Images)
Humphries also posited that Kennedy's plan to fund programs through revenue from legal marijuana would be so bureaucratic that getting these programs out of the ground would be a difficult and lengthy process. “There are 500 practical steps and barriers in between and I don't think this will happen,” Humphries said.
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Fox News Digital reached out to Kennedy's representatives for comment, particularly on his views on medically assisted treatment therapies, but did not receive a response per press time.
