“I’m going to create these wellness farms where they can go to get off of illegal drugs, off of opiates, but also illegal drugs, other psychiatric drugs, if they want to, to get off of SSRIs, to get off of benzos, to get off of Adderall, and to spend time as much time as they need — three or four years if they need it — to learn to get reparented, to reconnect with communities,” he said during the broadcast.
Isn’t it neat how he mixes in prescribed medical treatments? Neato.
He’s a big believer in the whole “keeping people on drugs isn’t the fix” kind of thinking. It’s short-sighted and ignorant of the fact that a lot of people on them have a net benefit to function in society.
What he is proposing is something far more stupid akin to “Well look at me. I’ve never needed these drugs, and I’m totally fine. WTF, people?”
If you want a country that is doing the proper work to stop jumping to long-term prescriptions as problem solvers, I’m all for that. DO NOT confuse that with these dumb shit he’s suggesting though.
“Well look at me. I’ve never needed these drugs [He does], and I’m totally fine [He’s not]. WTF, people?”
Yes, but he THINKS he is.
He THINKS he’s fine because he lives in a bubble with other people who are willing to accept and normalize his unmedicated issues at great personal cost. And now, instead of being kicked to the roadside or reckoning with the idea of “maybe I’m the asshole here”, he plans to make the whole US into his safe space so he doesn’t have to be confronted with an idea outside his sphere.
Yeah, you want to start with making it so I can live a full life without Adderall? Awesome, I’m all for it, start by building a robust and accessible public transportation network that allows for intercity and intracity transportation conveniently at all times of day, because trust me you do not want be driving unmedicated. Then you’re gonna need to solve the unable to maintain employment without meds problem. And even if you do all that I’ll fight you taking my meds tooth and nail because I feel seriously disabled without them and would much rather go without hearing aids than without adderall.
What he is proposing is something far more stupid akin to “Well look at me. I’ve never needed these drugs, and I’m totally fine. WTF, people?”
Except he looks like a reanimated corpse and sounds like a frog that died on a log in a bog.
He’s an ex drug addict.
I agree with the principal sentiment. Except for schizophrenia and other illnesses involving acute psychosis, drugs shouldnt be the permanent solution.
But this requires access to proper psychotherapy, which needs to be part of a consistent concept of slowly reducing the drugs as the condition gets better.
Also this requires a society, where people have enough agency to remove the causes of psychological distress from their life. People getting anxieties is perfectly normal, if they are in constant fear to not be able to pay their bills. People getting depressed is perfectly normal, if they are expected to work a dead end job for the rest of their lifes, etc.
I see none of that coming from the direction of any politician.
EDIT: Wow. People get offended by the idea not to pump people full of drugs for the rest of their lifes, when therapy is a viable alternative. Seriously why do you want people to suffer instead of providing proper healthcare including proper access to therapy and creating life conditions that aren’t designed to make people sick? I never thought this to be controversial.
You just agree because it comes from a maga nutjobs mouth.
“You’re just depressed because life sucks, get over it”
I really wonder why you get offended by “We should try to minimize the use of psychatric drugs, where therapy is a viable alternative”?
Do you prefer taking drugs with potentially severe side effects for the rest of your life? Do you want people to die, because some life event outside their control prevents them from accessing drugs like SSRIs or Benzodiazepines that can be deadly if quit cold turkey?
Nothing of that has to do with maga nutjobs. On the contrary it should be basic human decency to find and provide the least harmful treatment.
I really wonder why you get offended by “We should try to minimize the use of psychatric drugs, where therapy is a viable alternative”?
What you said here wouldn’t ruffle nearly as many feathers, because IMHO in your other post you buried the lede.
It’s definitely good to say that we need better access to therapy, and to improve societal conditions, since many people would be healthier with those instead of drugs. We’d all benefit!
Then there’s proposals by hardcore wingnuts like RFK that…are unreasonable to the point of doing outright harm. You just got confused for the latter, I guess. I wasn’t sure about your first comment, either.
Therapy is great. For some of us it’s necessary but not sufficient. If a medication can help me, it should be my right to decide if I want it as a permanent part of my treatment plan for as long as it helps.
No, not just for “schizophrenia and other illnesses involving acute psychosis”.
My brain literally does not properly process dopamine. Adderall, Ritalin, Strattera, etc help this. No matter how much my stress in life is reduced, I still need meds like these to function properly.
Yeah, without psychiatric grade stimulants I simply cannot function properly. Not just in a “industrialized society” way, but also in a “cooking, cleaning, regulating my emotions, regulating my behavior…” way. Without these meds I would need disability support, with them I’m able to support my household
Ah, but you make an exception for one of the most harmful kinds of perscription drugs that comes with severe side effects often far worse than the symptoms they’re meant to treat. It’s different because psychotic people scaaaaryyy I suppose?
It is different because there is no alternative to reliably prevent psychosis afaik.
Why the hell do you get offended by the idea to minimize use of psychatric drugs where possible and to continue use where necessary?
There’s no alternative to reliably treat many other psychiatric issues. And antipsychotics are often not worth the extremely debilitating side effects.
If someone has a liver, heart, or kidney problem, and need drugs to fix a deficiency - no problem.
But if it’s the brain you suggest not using drugs?
“Hey, person with a heart arrhythmia. Just get over it!”
Again nowhere did i say that. The precondition is always that therapy is available and working. But therapy is expensive and requires individual therapists. Making and selling psychiatric drugs can be done as an efficient business. And the companies doing so are such great benevolent entities that they have paid record sums in compensations for victims of them pushing the drugs. This includes often families where the drugs lead to psychosis, suicide, homicide, adverse health problems…
The very fact that psychiatric drugs can be advertised on TV in the US is complete madness. But i guess if you are a dealer or addict, nuance is easy to ignore.
I sure hope there will be people there that know what they’re doing. Benzo withdrawal is no joke and can lead to seizures.
Also, “get reparented” is some very sinister cult programming (ie brain washing) language…
Also extremely “these people should not be treated as having the legal autonomy of adults” vibes
Uh yeah, no.
I once thought it might be an idea to try and back off from 100mg sertraline to 50mg sertraline and on day two I wanted to strangle people. You can take my SSRIs from my cold dead hands.
Yeah, getting on and off medications is no easy task sometimes. And we already have mental health facilities you can go to for med adjustments. It’s just not free.
I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. On my current dose, I’m pretty good. Less? I very quickly go back to the state that brought me to where I needed to get on this medication. I am much better off staying on this dose until the end of my days, and frankly, so is everyone who has to interact with me.
That said, “not being free” made it so that I couldn’t stay on meds when I was in my twenties. The several other obstacles I dealt with over the decades mostly had to do with insurance that I had.
That’s fair, if you need the meds, you need the meds.
“Have you tried going outside and snapping out of it?”
-RFK Jr., probably
So school shootings are a mental health problem, so he wants to do the opposite of help. Goddamn, make these people make sense.
“Have you tried going outside and snapping out of it?”
He should let the brain worm get some sunlight.
Yeah, I’m on 300mg sertraline daily, and I sometimes have trouble getting my prescription filled (understandable, it’s a way bigger dose than usual)
But if I’m not on it, the suicidal thoughts usually start on day 3
So if they were to take my SSRIs, I would quickly be killed by my own cold, dead hands
I’m going to try and write on my brain to turn those thoughts entirely on the people who decided I shouldn’t get my meds anymore.
How are you going to kill yourself with your own cold dead hands? That implies you’re already dead. I guess you could chop them off and strangely yourself with them. That’d be pretty gruesome, but you do you I guess.
New level of “the stranger” achieved. Your own severed dead hand.
It’s all the same when you believe in conspiracy theories, are not a Dr., and had a brain worm die in your head.
Also, how in the hell do we not have at least a medical degree as the very 1st requirement for a position that controls/shapes medical care for the country?!
… to spend time as much time as they need — three or four years if they need it — to learn to get reparented, to reconnect with communities …
Is this paid time/leave? Who does he envision paying for his “wellness farms”? Or is this him envisioning everyone creating some commune farm where everyone is eating mushrooms and killing bears?
does that include his new bosses?
gonna need at least four years to get them all cleaned up and ‘reconnected with communities’.
and we better lock 'em all up just to make sure we don’t miss a straggler or two.
Wow, I’m so glad this dipshit who’s never had to work a day in his life could give this paternal wisdom to the plebs who might need this medication to retain employment and not die destitute in the streets.
Who knew they just needed to be sent to a farm upstate so they could run free forever and ever?
This is part of some rural grift facilities which probably started with “trouble teens”. In recent years I’ve seen reports of these “farms” for “distressed” women. It’s usually a place with Ranch in the name. Example: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/11/18/the-christian-maternity-ranch-in-texas-is-a-disaster-in-the-making/
Permaculture farms, for example, are already well known for relying on abusive work conditions. See Joel Salatin:
https://medium.com/permaculture-3-0/fall-of-a-hero-f9ac80a08c0c
Are these the same people that abduct teens at night and bring them to these camps where they die of dehydration?
Those are more like wilderness survival training, except nobody in charge has any wilderness survival training of their own.
He mentioned SSRIs in the article. Now I’m imagining a bunch of PTSD infantry combat vets laughing their ass off at the instructor.
I don’t think they’ll be much help without the Adderall.
Technically people do owe taxes on revenue from illegal activity. You certainly could put a tax on something that’s illegal, I just don’t think it would bring in much revenue I’d you’re still prosecuting people for that same thing you are taxing.
They tried that and it was previously struck down.
Don’t you have to state how much money you made illegally on your taxes?
You’re supposed to in the US, yes.
deleted by creator
There is literally a box for it in America
deleted by creator
I wonder if commenters here went beyond the headline, or bothered to read the quote in the comments.
The actual quote is not remotely as sinister. He said that he will start these community farms (which is not a labour camp for f sake) where addicts (which is not everyone who takes meds, it’s those who do but shouldn’t, of which there are thousands) can voluntarily choose to go, which is a far cry from “I’ll shove anybody who takes antidepressants into a labour camp” as the title suggests.
There are a lot of people who take meds from dealers instead of doctors, who may have started recreationally but are now addicted to them. This is what he is lumping together with other kinds of drug addicts. It’s not even that stupid, it has been shown in studies that addiction is more effectively addressed by giving the person meaningful things to do.
Now you can have your opinion on this idea and you can be skeptical of his implementation and you really should, the guy is a nut job who shouldn’t be allowed within ten kilometres from a government office - but sending regular joes to concentration camps because they take meds is not what he said.
This title is rage bait, don’t fall for it.
Yep, this sounds like the harm reduction approach that the left has been advocating for. It sounds like these are alternatives to prison for people with addictions. Not saying he’ll be able to make it work, but “tax cannabis + harm reduction” is much better than what a lot of Republicans’ drug policies are.
And yet downvotes are pouring 🫠
You were right about it being rage bait, too bad everyone fell for it.
The problem is:
- RFK wants to ban legal medications and his multiple other statements make it clear he thinks organic food can replace them. That’s creating clear harms for people.
- He may envision this as a voluntary commune but in reality once he has government backing these could be something non consensual. We already have NYPD forcing people into homeless shelters involuntarily. It’s worrisome coming from an openly authoritarian administration.
I don’t disagree with either of those points, I just don’t think they’re supported in the article. That’s why it’s rage bait.
RFK wants to ban legal medications and his multiple other statements make it clear he thinks organic food can replace them. That’s creating clear harms for people.
Can you provide a source for this? I have seen RFK claim vaccines are harmful, but the above seems inaccurately broad. RFK’s criticism of vaccines seems to stem from a misguided goal of “proving” they are safe. I suspect his definition of “safe” does not match the FDA’s. For example, aspirin causes many deaths and injuries each year (aka “not safe”), but I haven’t seen RFK moving to ban aspirin.
The belief that proposed government funded “wellness farms” would mutate into prison camps where citizens would be confined seems needlessly paranoid to me, but you can be as scared as you want. If there was a prediction market available on whether RFK would involuntary confine American citizens to prison camps in the next 4 years, I would gladly bet against that eventuality.
Sad that I had to scroll all the way to the bottom to find someone who actually read the article. Has Lemmy become reddit?
Always has been
Yeah honestly it sounds like a government program I’d support if it was proposed by someone like Barack Obama. So 🤷. I hope it’s successful and that they look at introducing more government-led programs and initiatives for people in need (I’m not holding my breath)
Fuck that.
I strongly dislike how the argument hinges on the very movable goalpost of “illegal” drugs. It has this awful moralizing “protect the kids while we destroy privacy”, vibe to it.
At first I though this would require an end-run on HIPAA, but all they really need to do is re-schedule a bunch of therapeutic drugs. Or ignore the FDA entirely and just enforce a ban by edict (somehow) through a different agency. I don’t think we’ve ever seen federal agencies openly disagree like that before, but I think it’s possible. Also: big pharma may have something to say about all this.
Like a lot of the nonsense coming from this cabinet, it’ll test the crap out of state’s rights.
Why would they need to do an end run around on the FDA? its been misclassifying drugs as schedule one for almost 60y now.
Big pharma will love it. All the drugs they made with expired patents are now illegal. Good thing they’ve got a very, very, very similar drug that meets all the necessary criteria, all lined up and ready to replace it (with a brand new patent, of course).
There has been some controversy about AstraZeneca’s behaviour in creating, patenting, and marketing the drug. Esomeprazole’s successful predecessor, omeprazole, is a mixture of two mirror-imaged molecules (esomeprazole which is the S-enantiomer, and R-omeprazole); critics said the company was trying to “evergreen” its omeprazole patent by patenting the pure esomeprazole and aggressively marketing to doctors that it is more effective than the mixture.[50]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esomeprazole
While the impact of CFCs from inhalers on the ozone layer had been minuscule (dwarfed by industrial processes using CFCs), the FDA in its interpretation of the Montreal Protocol mandated the switch in propellants.[17] Patients expressed concern about the high price of the HFA inhalers as there were initially no generic versions, whereas generic CFC inhalers had been available.[18]
What the actual fuck.
Nothing to see here, just politics as usual, the liberals are just trying to scare everyone. /s
I am not fan of RFK or any of this incoming administration, but I have to admit…those are going to be the most productive camps in the entire world! 🤣
So his solution to ADHD is a concentration camp?
Sure, that way they can learn to concentrate.
That’s what trump said to the ICC when they issued a public statement in 2025 about criminalizing mental illness
That’s great Trump won’t last a day in the labor camp.
“Labor camps for thee, not for me.” -Trump
And a tax on cannabis sales would fund these farms, he proposed.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but… is he really suggesting a federal tax on a federally illegal substance?
If it makes money, yes.
You hope he is just being clever and indirectly talking about legalizing cannabis, but you know that in reality he is just so incompetent that he has no idea what he is talking about.
but you know that in reality he is just so incompetent that he has no idea what he is talking about.
The reality is he’s very well educated and an overall intelligent person. His views are pure malice, not stupidity. Don’t be a dunce and underestimate him
He may be well educated, but he’s dumb as fuck.
Dude thinks the guy who stares at eclipses and changes hurricanes with a sharpie is smart lmfao. Wow
To be fair, they’re not talking about Trump, but RFK Jr.
They think the guy who straps a whale head to the top of his car and drives home with it is smart.
He also thought COVID was engineered to not hurt Asians and only Ashkenazi Jews. I’m not sure what kind of education these rich brats get but it definitely doesn’t make them smart.
Well, yeah? Tax stamps have pretty much always been required, and yes, on illegal weed.
https://norml.org/laws/tax-stamps/
https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/why-do-states-tax-illegal-drugs
Correct me if I’m wrong but are you pretending you don’t know the war on drugs to be utter bullshit that’s damaging society?
The war on drugs is bullshit, but the fact is that the US government still considers it a schedule 1 drug. My point is that they shouldn’t be able to tax it while still pretending that it should be illegal.
Well no the hypocrisy shouldn’t exist, that I agree with.
But I’d rather have taxation from cannabis while enduring the annoying hypocrisy rather than not have taxed cannabis and still listen to the hypocrisy.
The legal situation in the US is kinda weird. You can go to a legal shop to buy legal weed and when you walk out a federal agent might arrest you.
deleted by creator
This whole post is spam.
