Kennedy’s Wellness Farms: Potential Home for “Exit Plans” from Psychiatric Medications

February 13, 2025

Donald Trump’s recently confirmed Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has some novel ideas about how to handle a host of medical issues including vaccines, prescription drugs and even addiction. It is his ideas about treating addiction that some might find extravagant, but others find a welcome answer to an on-going “crisis.”

As a recovered alcoholic and addict, Kennedy brings a personal and unique qualification to the job. Personally familiar with cocaine and heroin addiction, Kennedy believes there is another way to treat addiction and would use tax revenue from another recreational mind-altering drug to fund what he calls “Wellness Farms.”

Kennedy would like to implement a novel idea of “wellness farms he imagines would also treat people who are trying to get off antidepressants, or other medications like those for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).”  This concept falls in line with AbleChild’s legislative agenda to get states to endorse mandatory “exit plans” when psychiatric drugs are first prescribed.

Too often, children and adults are prescribed mind-altering psychiatric drugs with no information about length of use or any discussion about how to ween off the addictive and often destructive prescription drugs once the “treatment” has done its job. In other words, once someone is no longer depressed then the prescribed antidepressant should be stopped. Too often, the drugs are prescribed cradle to grave. AbleChild embraces the concept of informed consent, which would include options and timelines for getting off prescribed drugs.

Any legitimate doctor prescribing mind-altering medications would advise a patient of how long the drug will be needed and how and when it will be stopped. And, if the patient is never to be withdrawn from a drug, a doctor must explain this too. That is called informed consent. Of course, this is a difficult task for any mental health prescribing doctor because not a single psychiatric diagnosis is based in science. No objective, confirmable, abnormality. And, contrary to popular belief, there is no known chemical imbalance in the brain that causes any psychiatric diagnosis.

So, for AbleChid’s purposes, Kennedy’s desire to make available to the public options for getting off prescribed drugs sounds like a legitimate concept, especially because the nation is now going into its second decade of what is being called a “mental health crisis.” The “crisis,” many would argue, is the excessive number of Americans being drugged for behavior modification.

What is unique about Kennedy’s “wellness farms” is that the lawyer and author will attempt to use tax revenue from legalized marijuana sales. So, those people smoking dope will actually be contributing to getting people off illegal and legal drugs. That’s an ironic concept that Kennedy believes would rely on peer-to-peer support and behavioral solutions.

For example, part of the wellness farm program would include addicts at drug free rehabilitation farms where addicts would learn farming, including livestock, tractors and machine maintenance and repair. A day in the life on a wellness farm also would include meditation, 12-step programs, and yoga. But the bottom line is that no drugs and medications would be allowed on property.

This concept of no medications like antidepressants doesn’t sit well with mental health experts who believe drugs are necessary for those struggling with addiction. Fully aware that many addicts fail at their attempts to stay clean, many wonder how often Americans will be allowed to participate in the wellness farms. While the funding would come from legal marijuana sales, that still is revenue Americans would use for other programs. How often will Americans have to pay for the addict’s treatment at the wellness farms?

It seems that the wellness farms still are in the invention room, but any program that encourages Americans to get clean, to get off prescribed psychiatric drugs, is a program that AbleChild is willing to get behind. Kennedy has an uphill battle on a number of medicinal fronts and this one may prove to be a double whammy. Not only will Kennedy be inserting himself into the obesely bloated mental health industry but also cutting into pharmaceutical profits.

Given Kennedy’s own personal addiction struggles and victories, no one should doubt his resolve to help make America healthy again. Those familiar with the alleged mental health “crisis” may argue it is an impossible battle for the incoming Secretary given that it is an industry where no one ever gets better…they just get more drugged.

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