RFK pushes abstinence and wellness programs he says helped him recover from addiction

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy is promoting abstinence and 12-step addiction treatment programs that he says helped him recover from heroin use. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he wants to transform the way the U.S. responds to addiction and the fentanyl crisis. It's called the Great American Recovery Initiative. One part of his vision is a proposal to build farm wellness camps modeled after a program in Italy. Kennedy has suggested these camps might be used to, quote, "reparent" some children. NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann is with us now to tell us more about this. Good morning, Brian. BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Hi, Michel. MARTIN: So where did this idea of reparenting children come from? MANN: So when Kennedy was a presidential candidate in 2024, one of his big campaign policy ideas was solving the U.S. addiction and overdose crisis. And he kept coming back to a program he had learned about, a farm camp in Italy for people recovering from drug use. Here he is speaking about it on the NewsNation network. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) ROBERT F KENNEDY JR: I've seen this beautiful model that they have in Italy called San Patrignano, where there are 2,000 kids who work on a large farm in a healing center. MANN: Now, what's new, Michel, is that over the last few weeks, recordings surfaced from 2024 of Kennedy saying kids would be reparented at these camps. …