RFK Jr will cut prescription drugs and increase weed and psychedelics access

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

RFK Jr will cut prescription drugs and increase weed and psychedelics access

Trump’s health department pick has expressed distrust of pharmaceuticals and attacked ‘suppression of psychedelics’

Hannah Harris Green
Mon 25 Nov 2024 11.00 GMT
Last modified on Mon 25 Nov 2024 16.45 GMT

Public health experts are concerned that, if confirmed, Donald Trump’s choice for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – Robert F Kennedy Jr – could upend access to pharmaceutical drugs in favor of more experimental treatments.

Kennedy, who the president-elect picked earlier this month, has repeatedly expressed distrust for pharmaceuticals, and criticized the FDA for its “aggressive suppression of psychedelics”. On his podcast, he called the US “the sickest country in the world”, blaming its healthcare system for devoting billions to “the pills and the potions and the powders rather than on actually getting people healthy, building their immune systems”.

Kennedy is a surprising choice for a number of reasons. He’s an attorney who lacks government public health experience and has criticized Trump harshly during his own independent presidential campaign.

But, like Trump’s other cabinet picks, Kennedy has expressed a conspiratorial mistrust for the agency he has been tapped to run. Matt Gaetz, who had been tapped to become attorney general before withdrawing himself from consideration on Thursday, believes the January 6 insurrection was a government sham intended to cover a stolen election while Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s national intelligence pick, has parroted Russian propaganda about US intelligence.

Kennedy has likewise promoted conspiracy theories about the healthcare system he would oversee, ...

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/25/rfk-jr-prescription-drugs-cannabis-psychedelics

Alternate link: https://news.yahoo.com/news/rfk-jr-cut-prescription-drugs-110041935.html

[marble falls]

1. What happens when one takes a grain of truth and mixes it with a slab of uninformed opinion ...

... yes, we are an over-medicated society, almost half the US has had a prescription in the last six months:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/drug-use-therapeutic.htm

Yes, there has been suppression of psychedelics/pot. But it has more to do with recreational use and not medicinal use.

Bobby Jr is more gadfly than advocate.

[The Madcap]

4. At this rate

We are going to need more recreational use to kill the pain

[marble falls]

6. At 74, fighting cancers (seem to have the upper hand after 12 years), the only drug I use is cannabis ...

... it takes care of everything including RA for me - sinus head aches not so much, but everything else.

My only prescriptions are vitamins D and C.

[sop]

2. "Excuse me, Mr. GOP senator, Big Pharma on line one..."

[Lovie777]

3. The drug companies will win on this one....................

although Americans are over medicated, there are many who rely on life saving medications.

[comradebillyboy]

5. When it comes to big pharma vs Bobby Jr, I will

support the big pharma folks every day.

[marble falls]

8. I say: "a plague on both their houses".

[comradebillyboy]

9. As an old man with heart disease and high blood pressure

among other age related ailments big pharma is what keeps me alive.

[marble falls]

10. Not pharma, your physicians do. They use appropriate treatments. Pharma would love to get you on more things ...

... than you need.

[comradebillyboy]

11. My physician prescribes all the drugs I take.

Somebody has to make them. They don't get wished into existence.

[C_U_L8R]

7. Gonna need a lot of psychoactives

To get through the next few years.

[exboyfil]

12. Grain of truth in the craziness

I am all for greater access to weed - maybe not so much for psychedelics even though I have only smoked weed twice when I was a teenager (didn't know how to smoke so I doubt I got much of a hit even though I did try to inhale), and I have never tried any other illicit drugs. I haven't consumed alcohol in any significant amount since my early 20s (my wife doesn't drink so I don't drink).

I also agree we are too pharma focused. It is difficult but many would benefit greatly from lifestyle changes. Going on keto and getting serious about my health made a tremendous difference for me (I walk 20K steps a day and do some rowing and resistance training). At my high I was 353 pounds (5'5&quot . I am now around 188. I used to have an A1C through the roof, but now I at low normal. I used to have high blood pressure but now am 118/64. At 61 I am in my best shape since my 30s (or even earlier). I used to take statins and lisinopril, but I don't take any prescriptions now (just a multivitamin and Vitamin C). I get sick far less often and have more energy. I think my cognitive ability also has improved. I used to tell I had poor circulation in my hands and feet, but that is no longer the case.

My keto doctor was my wife's backup doctor for her diabetes, but she won't consider full keto. She has benefitted from Trulicity and now Mounjaro.

[Joinfortmill]

13. His brain is mush