[oldgradstudent]

Is this a parody?

> Beyond problems at the border, the current Secretary for Health and Human Services - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - has said that he will send those with ADHD to camps. Source: Futurism.

What he actually said:

> "I’m going to dedicate that revenue to creating wellness farms — drug rehabilitation farms, in rural areas all over this country," he said during the podcast. "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."

That what happens when you rely on Futurism as a source.

[graeme]

The full quote extends that to adderal. To be clear he said the wellness farms would be for those who want to go, and he's describing a massive undertaking that you'd see coming before it was implemented.

But he was definitely talking about ADHD. This tweet has the short video of him actually including adderal.

https://x.com/MotherJones/status/1816180369110270435

[viraptor]

Keep in mind he's also a guy who, contradicting all the available evidence, is saying incorrect things about the nature of adhd and dips heavily into moral issues when discussing medical problems. So any facilities related to his ideas are unlikely to provide actually care.

[michaelsshaw]

Obviously I'm super into giving the trump admin the benefit of the doubt. It's like, the number one thing that I like doing.

[gherkinnn]

The full quote, as per Futurism: (emphasis mine)

> 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,

I am not going to skim through 1.5h of deranged ramblings in a raspy voice to find him saying this though.

[fastball]

So he said nothing about ADHD.

[philjohn]

"to get off Adderall"

Are you trying to claim that because he didn't specifically mention ADHD, despite mentioning the drug used to treat ADHD, that he's not talking about ADHD despite him holding views about neurodiversity that are at odds with the published literature on their treatment?

[fastball]

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Are you trying to claim that all users of Adderall have ADHD? Because that is the only way you can say "well he is effectively talking about ADHD if he is talking about adderall", but that conflation is objectively untrue. Countless people without ADHD abuse adderall / ritalin / etc.

In fact, people without ADHD are much more in need of an intervention if they are abusing adderall than someone who has ADHD, wouldn't you say? So the much more reasonable interpretation is that he is talking about those people, not people with ADHD.

[eqvinox]

> Because that is the only way you can say "well he is effectively talking about ADHD if he is talking about adderall",

No it's not the only way, because he's also talking about SSRIs, which have only medical uses (no abuse potential really). Therefore it is reasonable to argue he is also talking about Adderall's intended medical use against ADHD rather than its abuse.

[fastball]

No, you can't put words in his mouth. He said Adderall, not ADHD.

Yes he said SSRIs, but SSRIs are not for ADHD, so that has no bearing on whether or not he said "people with ADHD should be sent to camps", which he just... did not say.

This shouldn't need to be stated, but I personally think RFK Jr. is a nutter. That doesn't mean you can stick words in his mouth or imply things he didn't actually say.

Be better than the other side.

[Jolter]

You could make the exact same argument about his mention of SSRIs. "Oh, he just means all the people without depression, who are abusing SSRIs."

No, you're being intentionally disingenuous here. Obviously, he dislikes the fact that these drugs are being prescribed to patients, and he would prefer it if they were not. I'm sure he imagines that these "farms" would be a better treatment for depression than SSRIs are, and likewise for the other drugs and conditions.

[ifyoubuildit]

Presumably it doesn't matter whether the person has depression or not. All that matters is whether they want to get off a drug and want help doing so.

[ifyoubuildit]

The idea is a place for anyone to get off any kind of drug they want to get off of. Note the "they want" part. Who are you to fault someone for deciding they no longer want to take a substance but need help doing so? Or someone trying to help that person?

[ayewo]

Adderall is a drug commonly abused by people without an ADHD diagnosis.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/magazine/generation-adder...

[nialse]

In a historical context “wellness farms” is understood as a euphemism for concentration camp. It’s free but you can’t leave.

[silisili]

If you talk to a parent of a child who OD'd, most commonly of fent these days, they all have this thought.

What if I took them somewhere remote where there are no drugs and didn't let them leave?

My heart hurts for them, but I have no idea if it's a good idea or not.

Regardless, I think his heart is in the right place. Time will tell whether or not it's actually useful.

[rswail]

If the parents went with the child, and stayed with them, then maybe.

But they don't, they outsource the job to a group of (mostly) sadistic, uneducated-in-rehab, "boot camps" that somehow think that violently invading an individual's rights and actions is how to "cure" drug addiction, without attempting to treat the underlying causes of addictive behavior.

[croes]

They had camps to cure gayness.

The problem isn’t the camps but the people who have the authority in them and how the treat people especially if the cure isn’t working.

Not everything can be cured by organic food, fresh air and labor.

BTW is the food the grow for the farms only or is selling it part of the plan?

If the latter then it’s about cheap labor

[silisili]

Yes and we used to kill witches for being... different.

That is to say, to any sane modern human, curing gayness is nothing like curing drug addiction.

We have to do something. Because whatever we've been doing for the past two decades has amounted to nothing.

And maybe that ends up being the answer, that there is nothing you can do. But I'll never insult someone for trying, no matter the method.

[croes]

People are still killed for being different, they just aren’t called witches.

>But I'll never insult someone for trying, no matter the method.

No matter the method is a bad take, that’s how we got gruesome people doing gruesome experiments on people who need treatment.

And the camp thing is pretty old and they always end the same: abuse of power.

[silisili]

> No matter the method is a bad take

Perhaps, but I have family going through this and it just makes you so mad. I'd pay to send him to a camp where he's beat with a bullwhip every day if I knew it could cure him.

Perhaps it clouds my judgment a bit, but the alternative is just watching him die, which I'm not stoked about.

[snotrockets]

The problem is the camps. It's forces framing certain traits as something that requires exiling people who show them.

[qingcharles]

The profit margin on drugs is good. I think it would take about zero days before "remote location" is programmed into the Google Maps of several local dealers.

I've been in max security prisons. There are generally far more drugs inside these than I've ever seen in the outside world.

I don't want to piss on rehab too much, it can work. But for every decent rehab facility there are probably 100 bogus ones.

Also remember, that to an addict who has been to prison, rehab feels like prison. It has the same locked-down, heavy-on-the-rules design that can cause serious PTSD issues for (practically everyone) who suffers some sort of trauma from being incarcerated.

[lynx97]

Not just parents. Its a method that actual addicts employ. I have heard this not only once. "Moved a few months to a rural place where I had no access to the stuff to get my system clean" is a tactic that people turn to. Heck, one example I am thinking of even moved from the USA to Europe in the 90s to get rid of his crack addiction.

[BriggyDwiggs42]

1) its not a camp with a bunch of other addicts, who would most certainly procure the stuff and make it available

2) its entirely voluntary and non-coerced

[InvisibleUp]

There’s a webcomic, “Joe vs. Elan School”, that might be an enlightening read for you.

[silisili]

This actually resonates a bit with my own thoughts from these comments.

If we assume a drug abuser is doomed for death in the next 6 months. But by using them as slave labor in terrible conditions for 3 years guarantees they will live to old age, regardless of any psychological trauma from said experience, is it worth it?

I'm not taking a position, I'm just making a thought experiment. It's more of a moral philosophical thing than an answer, I guess.

I think a lot of people not in the midwest may not understand the gravity of the fentanyl problem in the US. Literally every family is affected, whether directly or indirectly.

[rendx]

What makes it so that some people/cultures seem to value age over anything else? If their lives continue to be miserable, broken inside, violent temper thanks to being treated like a slave, a long life to me sounds more like a punishment than a goal.

It's basically a religious war. One side seems to think they need to "break people's spirit" by "work camps", the other side seems to believe in "healing from violence" by compassion. You're free to pick your side, but it's going to get harder to switch, and the other side will treat you as their enemy.

[BriggyDwiggs42]

Your thought experiment, the drug dealer being universally doomed, the only consequence being a state of slavery for a finite time, etc has no relation to reality.

[dns_snek]

> is it worth it?

The answer is a very obvious "no" in any society that claims to be free.

> I'm not taking a position

Frankly it's terrifying that these sorts of questions are being posed as real dilemmas in western societies in 2025.

[snotrockets]

He has no heart. He is cruel, as he subscribes to the idea that a disease isn’t something you get because you rolled the dice wrong, but something that can be avoided by being “pure”. For him, pure health is never systematic or unlucky; the person is at fault.

This is not only immoral and vile, but borders on the psychopathic. The man should have never been allowed to make any decision affecting public health.

[viraptor]

Before downvoting, do look at many available yt videos about his views of mental health. He puts that into much nicer words, but the comment is a good summary.

[whacko_quacko]

I had a drug problem once, and di something like that. It helped a lot. If there's no way to procure any drugs, it takes away a lot of the pain and anguish you feel coming off of drugs.

RFK might be an idiot, but even idiots might be right once in a while

[mschuster91]

> If there's no way to procure any drugs, it takes away a lot of the pain and anguish you feel coming off of drugs.

Or the fact that you're not longer in the environment with its stressors that cause you to seek out drugs in the first place? Lots of people sleeping rough go for drugs of any kind just to be able to put their mind to rest.

Finland shows this with its "housing first" policy, giving people a home is a relatively easy way to get them off of drugs.

[bitwize]

That's how kids end up at Elan School.

The current administration is setting up a modern day Spiegelgrund.

[hayst4ck]

Not to mention that many farms will be lacking migrant labor due to mass deportations.

"Work will set you free from your addiction."

[_2d30]

In what historical context was “wellness farm” used as a euphemism?

[froh]

would you, in the context of fascist Germany or other totalitarian regimes with concentration camps, not understand the quoted text as cynical euphemism for such camps?

this understanding of metaphors is not that it was used then. the understanding happens today a contemporary application of historical knowledge.

and honestly, it's obvious.

[vasco]

It's not after that fact, or any euphemism - this is the exact way the regime tried to pass them off at the time. Germany called the concentration camps luxurious places to hangout and learn skills and rehabilitate, with post office, frequent movie screenings, a swimming pool, nice beds. The reality was much different as we know. They did have a small pool on the grounds for show.

https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/lying-about-ausc...

[_2d30]

Your source for this is an article that takes down a description from a book that was written in 2010. Not sure if you quite caught that on your thorough reading of it.

[vasco]

I just wanted to find some supporting information, what I know about this I know from visiting the camp myself so I didn't have an amazing source at hand.

[froh]

wow. TIL.

[taneliv]

Good for you! If only things like this were taught in schools so that by the time people find Hacker News, they'd already know about them. We would be having entirely different conversations.

[_2d30]

Oh so you mean it wasn’t used that way in a historical context? Got it.

[froh]

no I was explaining what understanding in historic context means.

edit: ...also I didn't know it was even used this way, back then, see my TIL reply in some "cousin" comment.

[_2d30]

If by "back then", you mean 2010, then yeah.

But if you still mean that the specific term "wellness farm" COULD have been used as a euphemism for concentration camps (regardless of whether or not it ever was), then what's the point? Like people also COULD have used the term "suburb" as euphemism for a concentration camp. Should we also be skeptical of anyone who says they want to build suburbs? What's even the point of of saying that a term COULD have been used as euphemism historically?

[Aeolun]

Do you read ‘wellness farm’ and think it is something literal?

If it was a well accepted term it’d be one thing, but when made up on the spot it very much sounds like “place we sen out undesirables” to me.

[BriggyDwiggs42]

Current day

[BlackjackCF]

If RFK’s comments were made in isolation, I wouldn’t be so worried.

However, you put it in context with the fact that this administration has shipped off people to an El Salvadoran prison without any due process… this becomes a lot more ominous.

[jrflowers]

I like that you scrolled past the relevant paragraph here and then quoted a different thing that he said as proof that the paragraph that you ignored didn’t exist. I’m curious as to why you would bother including a real quote from the article? If your starting point for crafting a post is “Nobody will read the article I’m talking about” the sky is the limit, you could say he said anything you like.

[samsm1737337]

Well, all I am going to take from this after reading some of the replies is that there is a slight change that the Brainwormguy is going to send the Rocketmann to a farm upstate. I can live with that.

[rswail]

Considering he has been a lifelong addict to various drugs, with endless wealth to be sent to "wellness farms", I'd take his opinion on how to treat any disease with the same perspective as I would any other drug-addled, brain-holed, rich narcissist, that caused his wife to commit suicide.

In other words, his opinion isn't worth the electronic bits needed to spread them.

[croes]

First you can go and leave as you like, then you can go but can’t leave, then you have to go.

Given the things he said about vaccines and bird flu, I wouldn’t trust him an inch.

[_2d30]

Yes and some of the links to the “traumatizing” deportations are for people who are clearly in violation of their visas.

I had a friend deported from Denmark when he overstayed his visa and it was basically the same thing.

Some of these look really bad and could be sensible justification for the proposed boycott/cancellation (see French scientist eg) but a lot of it looks completely hysterical.

[someothherguyy]

> a lot of it looks completely hysterical

Some bad history with executive orders / The Alien Enemies Act and interning people in the US:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans

Also, the current administration stated an intent to relocate (intern / reeducate?) the homeless, many of whom are citizens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_47#Social_issues

[croes]

How long did his deportation take?

Because two weeks in jail what could be a simple flight home sounds fishy.

And I wouldn’t want to gamble if I‘m one of the unlucky ones that you described as looking bad.

That kind of uncertainty is exactly what makes those travels unnecessarily dangerous.

That’s not hysterical it‘s cautious.

[_2d30]

I don’t quite remember and would have to ask. I think he was detained for 5 days, maybe?

> Because two weeks in jail what could be a simple flight home sounds fishy.

The inefficiency of American institutions is nearly limitless. Don’t put too much stock in the glacial pace of our bureaucracy as being malicious when it happens everywhere else out of broad incompetence.

> That’s not hysterical it‘s cautious.

Again, I agree that there are a few stories of deportations that are legitimate causes for concern about hosting a conference with internationals in the US. But if you use people getting deported for overstaying their visas as a part of justifying that concern, then that is hysterical. It conflates issues that are effectively totally unrelated to one another.

It would be like claiming it’s not safe to travel to Italy because the local justice systems will charge you with trumped up charges and quote both the Amanda Knox case as well as cases where Americans actually broke the law and got charged justly. Only the Amanda Knox case is actual justification for the claim!

[Timwi]

> The inefficiency of American institutions is nearly limitless. Don’t put too much stock in the glacial pace of our bureaucracy as being malicious when it happens everywhere else out of broad incompetence.

Correct me if I'm misreading this, but it sounds like you're saying that inefficiencies due to incompetence are exempt from criticism.

It should go without saying that detaining innocent people is BAD, regardless of whether it's malice or incompetence.

[_2d30]

I’m not saying it’s exempt from criticism and honestly I don’t know how that could possibly be an interpretation of that. I’m literally calling it incompetent which is clearly criticism. I’m saying that a 2wk detention due to glacial pace of our shitty bureaucracy isn’t really “fishy” about anything.

And to be clear, they aren’t innocent in the referenced example. They were breaking the terms of their visa.

[q3k]

> The inefficiency of American institutions is nearly limitless. Don’t put too much stock in the glacial pace of our bureaucracy as being malicious when it happens everywhere else out of broad incompetence.

The purpose of a system is what it does.

[_2d30]

This is one of the dumbest things people say constantly.

Remember this the next time you ship a bug! You built a system whose purpose was to have that bug in it.

[q3k]

If my system regularly ships bugs, then yes, it's purpose is apparently to regularly ship bugs. If my system ships rarely bugs, then yes, it's purpose is apparently to rarely ship bugs.

[none_to_remain]

The purpose of that meme is to annoy me with its inanity

[qingcharles]

I've known people get caught up for months in immigration detention over simple snafus. I've also known several people who were literally just turned around at the gate and shoveled straight onto the next flight home. There are thousands of border points, and thousands of border agents, so I'm guessing there is an element of luck depending on where you appear.

[Aeolun]

All of those things look like they’re about being detained for several weeks when trying to enter the US? Why wouldn’t they just refuse you entry instead?

[jeltz]

Yeah, why detain and treat people badly when you should just send them back home on the first available flight and then ban them from using the ESTA program? The pointless and expensive cruelty is the issue.