In dark bluejeans and work shirt, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood in a Texas farm field, faced a camera and outlined his plan to combat drug addiction.
“I’m going to bring a new industry to these forgotten corners of America, where addicts can help each other recover from their addictions,” he said in a 45-minute documentary, “Recovering America: A Film About Healing Our Addiction Crisis,” released in June by his presidential campaign.
“We’re going to build hundreds of healing farms where American kids can reconnect to America’s soil, where they can learn the discipline of hard work that rebuilds self-esteem and where they can master new skills,” he continued.
As Mr. Kennedy prepares for his confirmation hearings to become federal health secretary, he has faced intense focus for his views of vaccines, the pharmaceutical industry, nutrition and chronic disease. But there has been little discussion of his ideas to address the drug crisis, one of the country’s deadliest problems, which he refers to as a “plague.”
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a federal agency that Mr. Kennedy would oversee if confirmed, roughly 48.5 million Americans have a substance use disorder involving drugs, alcohol or both. According to the most recent provisional federal data, there were nearly 90,000 drug overdose deaths in the 12 months that ended in August 2024.
The way Mr. Kennedy overcame his own addiction to heroin informs his approach to treatment generally. He often invokes his “spiritual realignment,” anchored by a belief in God, and reinforced by more than 40 years of daily 12-step-program meetings.
