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by gherkinnn 462 days ago
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.
1 comments
fastball 462 days ago
So he said nothing about ADHD.
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philjohn 462 days ago
"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?

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fastball 462 days ago
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.

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eqvinox 462 days ago
> 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.

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fastball 462 days ago
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.

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eqvinox 462 days ago
That's all nice and well, but he also did say "psychiatric drugs", as if those were somehow generally bad and appropriate to reference in the same breath as illegal drugs.

Maybe, had he not said that bit as well, I'd agree with you. He could be talking about Adderall purely in a sense of misuse.

But he included psychiatric drugs, and that (and the SSRIs) makes his statement ambiguous enough that I'm comfortable interpreting it as including ADHD patients.

(And, just purely for vilifying psychiatric drugs, the threshold for intolerance [which must not be tolerated in order to achieve a tolerant society] is crossed. Lots of people have mental health issues and need treatment, including with drugs.)

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Jolter 462 days ago
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.

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ifyoubuildit 462 days ago
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.
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ifyoubuildit 462 days ago
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?
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ayewo 462 days ago
Adderall is a drug commonly abused by people without an ADHD diagnosis.

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

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