On Addiction Treatment, RFK Jr. Can Walk the Tightrope

There are many stakeholders in the broad substance use disorder (SUD) landscape who are nervous about how US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will steer policy. But from a treatment perspective, given his beliefs and experiences, he could drive significant improvement in the way those Americans who suffer most severely from SUD are treated.

In January, after President Trump took office and nominated Kennedy to be secretary, many SUD treatment providers and advocates, along with several media outlets, immediately raised concerns. Pointing predominantly to the 45-minute documentary Kennedy made as part of his early campaign for the presidency, some advocates feared that if he was confirmed as secretary of HHS, he would use his personal experience and preferences to unduly influence the country’s SUD treatment policy away from evidence-based treatment, including the use of medications like methadone and buprenorphine.

In “Recovering America – A Film About Healing Our Addiction Crisis,” Kennedy, who is in long-term recovery from heroin addiction, featured “healing farms” – a form of therapeutic communities – as successful models for treating SUD. Therapeutic community is a treatment approach built on the premise that for recovery to occur, a change in lifestyle and social and personal identity is vital. He said that if he was elected president, he would open hundreds of healing farms across the country.

Of course, he did not become president, but he was confirmed as secretary of HHS in February.

Kennedy’s support of healing farms is not the only concern of some advocates. The pathway to his own recovery – a 12-step program – and his staunch support and continued participation in that program, which many criticize for its abstinence-only philosophy, including its rejection of medications to treat SUD, is also a red flag [read the full blog post here].