I now understand the puzzling and improbable rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a crank who is President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. And I realized this because of psychedelics. No, it wasn’t the ketamine talking.
RFK Jr., who himself has struggled with addiction, has promised to legalize the controlled use of psychedelics, with some form of regulated access. He has even posted on Instagram about how ayahuasca helped his son heal from the grief of losing his mother. He would easily be the most pro-psychedelic cabinet member the country’s ever known.
Let’s be clear: RFK Jr. is a committed conspiracy theorist and proponent of dubious medical cures. He will likely be an unmitigated disaster for public health. But I see why people like me, who have felt abandoned by the medical system, see promise in him.
A year and a half ago, therapy using the psychedelic ketamine changed my life — and maybe even saved it. My anxiety was so bad, and so unresponsive to any number of traditional medications, that the only things capable of quelling it were a pizza and a bottle of wine. The physical effects of this were visible. I had gone from being a former marathoner to being unable to run a mile.
But after a few sessions of ketamine therapy that I received through a telehealth company, I did not feel a desire to grab a bottle of wine when on the cusp of an anxiety attack. I cleared my head with a long swim instead. The change was profound — I began eating better and was able to focus more at work.
Psychedelic therapy patients like me tend to have deeply personal stories about finding success with the likes of ketamine. But our stories are often borne out by research. One study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that more than half of patients with treatment-resistant depression saw success without major side effects from ketamine therapy. Patients using ketamine to treat post-traumatic stress disorder have shown results within 24 hours.
Ketamine is the rare psychedelic treatment that’s legal to use off-label for treating mental health issues like severe depression, even though the Drug Enforcement Administration classifies it as a Schedule III controlled substance. Trump made some controlled substances legal to prescribe online in 2020, opening the door to startups like the one I use to access ketamine.
Public opinion toward ketamine and other psychedelic therapy seemed to be improving, for a while. Oregon and Colorado have decriminalized some psychedelic substances that are illegal on a federal level. The San Jose-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies has distributed more than $20 million for research and education about psychedelic therapy and medical marijuana.
Shortly before the actor Matthew Perry died, partially from the effects of ketamine, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about the use of compounded versions of the drug. It’s clear that ketamine has strong potential for addiction and a host of other issues for some people. I’ve been able to use it safely, but not everyone can.
The broader backlash has begun. This year, the FDA gave a thumbs-down to the use of ecstasy, or MDMA, as a PTSD treatment. This month, Massachusetts voters rejected a ballot measure that would have legalized psilocybin.
Proponents of the legalization of psychedelics could have a powerful advocate in RFK Jr. And with that support could come swift changes. If the mercurial Trump goes along with his Cabinet pick’s promised reforms, it could mean relief for millions more people like me whose mental health would suffer without effective treatments.
I remain a major RFK Jr. skeptic, but I’ve come to understand why so many people have faith in him. Mainstream medicine has failed countless Americans, and they’ve turned to solutions that are well outside the mainstream, treated with skepticism, and sometimes even illegal.
I didn’t fully realize his appeal until I became one of these Americans.
Caroline McCarthy is a marketing executive and former journalist whose 2018 TED Talk focused on advertisers’ role in perpetuating social and political discord.