RFK Jr. Has Proposed Wellness Farms, but What Exactly Are They Used For?

It seems like the health views of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may actually be steering policy in that sphere. Donald Trump has announced that RFK Jr. will be his nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, which has led some to do a deeper dive into what his actual positions are in that arena.

RFK Jr. has been an outspoken opponent of vaccination throughout his career, but he has a range of other views, some of which are more grounded in fact than others. Among the proposals that RFK has floated on the campaign trail is the creation of something called "wellness farms." Here's what we know about what those might look like.

When he was still running for president, RFK proposed creating “wellness farms, drug rehabilitation farms, in rural areas all over this country."

That proposal was first floated on the Latino Capitalist podcast in July. He said that he would fund the creation of those farms through taxing the legal sale of marijuana. “I’m going to make it so people can go, if you’re convicted of a drug offense, or if you have a drug problem, you can go to one of these places for free," he said.

RFK also said that the farms would be with people for all sorts of drug problems, including addition to opioids, but also people who wanted to get off of ADHD medications or antidepressants. He said that he could see some people staying at these farms for "three or four years," and that the farms would help them reconnect to their communities and get "reparented."

"They're going to grow their own food organic food, high quality food, because a lot of the behavioral issues are food related a lot of the illnesses are food related," he continued. "There won't be any cell phones, there there won't be any screens. We're going to reparent people, restore this connection to community."

Although these wellness farms might seem like a worthwhile idea on paper, there are plenty of ways these kinds of systems could be rife with abuse. It's also unclear how different they would really be from the rehabilitation facilities that already exist across the country, and RFK's claims that most of the issues come down to not eating organic food also don't seem to be based on hard science.

Whether these wellness farms will ultimately get created remains to be seen. What seems clear, though, is that many of RFK's ideas are not actually based in what medical experts might recommend, and he seems to be fine bucking that status quo.

Addiction and other drug problems are serious issues affecting millions of Americans. Whether wellness farms built out across the country are the best way to fix those problems remains to be seen, but we may get to find out exactly how effective they would be.