Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the 2024 Democratic presidential legacy candidate with what may be the most famous last name in U.S. politics, says that he would legalize psychedelics and marijuana if elected to the White House – a promise that may surely get him support from psychedelic drug advocates in the United States. He also expressed his intent to federally tax both substances and use the revenue to create “healing centers” in rural areas for the millions of U.S. citizens who suffer from drug addiction. These healing centers would serve as a therapeutic tool for people recovering from substance abuse, where they could learn organic farming and heal physically, spiritually and emotionally – an idea inspired by an Italian Model called San Patrignano.
The candidate has made some progressive promises, such as promoting free speech, ending surveillance, expanding legal immigration, and ending wars; however, his stance on drug policy reform had remained an enigma – until now.
On Wednesday, while discussing the increasing number of fentanyl deaths in the United States during a town hall event with NewsNation, drug addiction counselor Felicia Micili asked Kennedy about his policies and platform on substance use and overdose. Kennedy candidly shared that he had also struggled with addiction, having been an addict for 14 years until the age of 28 as a result of his father—former Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s death. After 40 years of recovery, he stated that he has a “very good idea of what works” and that “we need to make some changes in this country”.
“We need to make addiction treatment easy, simple, cheap,” RFK stressed.
“Our country has a chronic inflammation – spiritually, mentally, emotionally,” he said while discussing the challenges the country is facing in terms of the rising numbers of people suffering from depression who are now “stuck on SSRIs”.
“I know what suffering American families are enduring, and it is something that is a high priority for me. He called this initiative his Peace Corps program, referring to his uncle John F. Kennedy’s program, which was a hallmark of the Kennedy administration. “I’m going to build these rehab centers all over the country,” he stated firmly.
“I’m going to decriminalize marijuana on a federal basis, allow the states to regulate it, continue to tax it federally and use those taxes to fund the recovery programs,” RFK said. “And I would do the same thing for psychedelic drugs, which I do not think should be criminalized.”
“I would legalize psychedelic drugs—some form of legalization,” he said, though remained uncertain about making psychedelics available in stores.
“I don’t know about just buying them in stores. I have to look at all that,” he said. “But in one way or another, we need to make it easy for people to use them in ways that could benefit our children and could benefit everybody. I’ve seen it in my own family, the benefits of it.”
The candidate said that he’s read the psychedelic studies and “there’s so many people being helped in different ways by them, and we have to make it easier—maybe to prescribe them or to give them therapeutically.”
Though he expressed that he doesn’t believe that a “pill or a potion” would fix an internal problem, he’s “seen miraculous recoveries from psychedelic drugs from PTSD from veterans who have used it, from people who have suffered severe depression, OCD and many, many other injuries.”
“I’m not saying blanket legalization—but we need to make it easy for psychiatrists and therapists who are trained to be able to use this on their patients [as] an experiment and see if we get good results,” he persisted.
The cannabis and psychedelic-tax funded recovery program is inspired by San Patrignano, a drug recovery community regarded as one of the most successful in the world. The Italian model uses a farmer-centered approach to help people struggling with substance use by getting them involved in gardening and animal care, among other activities.
“That’s what we need to build here,” he stated. “What I would do as president is I would decriminalize marijuana. I will make safe banking laws for people who are selling it, I will tax it federally and I will use that money to build these healing centers in rural areas—depressed rural areas—all over the country, where kids can grow organic food and eat well and heal themselves spiritually, physically and emotionally.”
Robert Kennedy isn’t the only one from the family who supports psychedelic legalization. According to Marijuana Moment, Joe Kennedy III (D-MA), once strongly opposed to the marijuana movement, now also backs psychedelic legalization and research into these substances’ therapeutic potential.
