Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Says Using Heroin Made Him a Star Student

just a few months ago Donald Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The former presidential candidate to oversee US health policy painted a shocking picture of heroin’s effectiveness as a study aid.

“I was at the bottom of my class,” he said during a podcast appearance on the Shawn Ryan Show. “I started using heroin and was at the top of my class. Suddenly I could sit still, read and concentrate. “I could hear what people were saying.”

The interview was published in July during Kennedy’s unsuccessful presidential run, but resurfaced on social media after the president-elect nominated him to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Former environmental lawyer perhaps best known hawking vaccine conspiracy theories and trying to limit access to one of civilization’s greatest medical achievements. But he was also open about his struggle with addiction.

During the July interview, Kennedy described how he first tried LSD when he was 15, the summer his father, Robert F. Kennedy Sr., was assassinated. After LSD, he quickly moved on to his “drugs of choice”, heroin and cocaine, and eventually managed to get sober 14 years later.

He said drugs “emptied” his life and ruined his relationships but made him a star student.

“My mind was so restless and turbulent that I couldn’t sit still,” he said.

All he wanted was to go outside and play in the forest.

“I would probably be diagnosed with ADHD today. “I was jumping off the walls,” he added. “So, you know, I was probably self-medicating on some level.”

But his struggle to pay attention hasn’t made him an advocate for ADHD medications like Adderall. Trump’s choice to “make America healthy again” floating The idea of ​​“wellness farms” — much like labor camps — to get people off ADHD meds, anxiety meds, and antidepressants.

During his appearance on the podcast, he went so far as to blame the pharmaceutical industry, not the gun lobby, for the proliferation of mass shootings in America.

Kennedy argued that gun ownership rates have remained relatively stable since the 1970s, whereas more than 100 million Americans currently use medication. (However, the number of weapons in circulation rose rapidly Since the 1990s and the weapons themselves have become much more fatal.)

“I have a scientific mindset, and I look at this and say, ‘It can’t just be guns,'” he said, before complaining that the National Institutes of Health had not studied whether drugs turn people into mass murderers.

Whenever a mass shooting occurs, Kennedy doesn’t ask himself whether the attacker used an assault-style weapon; took off After the federal assault rifle ban expired in 2004. His first question was whether the attacker was on an SSRI or a benzo.

But perhaps at least one of the future health czar’s policy positions appeared to be based on actual medical facts rather than a “just asking no questions” assumption.

When Ryan reluctantly asked Kennedy to comment on rumors that he supported late-term abortions, Kennedy explained that his thinking on the issue had changed after learning that most late-term abortions were medical emergencies.

“No woman wants to get pregnant, carry a baby for nine months, and then have an abortion the day before. Who does this? he stated.

He said that in almost all late-term abortions, the mother’s life or health is at risk, and in this case, she does not want the government to make the decision on the mother’s behalf.

If confirmed, he will have to do so in the Cabinet Room; Here he will probably sit across the table from famous architects. anti-abortion Project 2025 policy agenda. The West Wing could be about to get very interesting.