Sounds like reeducation to me.
Apologies if this is a repost. I feel like people need to see this.
This is obviously horrendous on the face of it, but in addition, he doesn’t even consider people who take medication classed as antidepressants for other issues. I am on a tricyclic antidepressant that does help my depression, but I also take it because it significantly reduces migraine attacks and mitigates my IBS symptoms. So even if you do think that depression is ‘all in your head’ (ignoring all modern information and proof to the contrary), you still should be enraged by the mere suggestion of a policy like this.
People trying to quit smoking are gonna be considered anti-depressant addicts because this worm-headed fuck doesn’t know they use them as smoking cessation, too.
While I’m not a fan of RFK Jr., this seems to be a misinterpretation of what he’s saying. Regarding antidepressants, he said, “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…” (emphasis mine)
It seems like, in addition to drug related offenses (which is its own rather thorny issue) he intends for this to be for people who want to stop taking SSRIs, benzos, and other psych meds and need support doing it. I’m not seeing any indication that this would be involuntary, and I’m certain that if he said anything like that the quote would be present, but it’s not.
Having seen how devastating the withdrawal can be for some psych meds, even with tapering, I can’t say that this seems like a bad idea on its face. So many people try to quit psych meds and end up hospitalized; I’ve believed for a long time that there should be some sort of recovery program for people coming off of these medications, because they will 100% mess you up when you start taking less.
Now, adderall I don’t really understand its inclusion here, because it isn’t known for withdrawal.
“if they want to”
So…
The Chinese government has claimed that the Xinjiang re-education camps were voluntary educational centers aimed at combating extremism and teaching vocational skills…
They actually spread multiple different stories about what these concentration camps were. First they denied their existence outright, then satellite photos and documentation was published that proved these were real, so they claimed they were factories, schools, prisons for terrorists, etc. Many of these lies were published at nearly the exact same time.
That’s how we know that they are actually concentration camps, that there is actually a genocide going on.
There is no such thing as addiction to antidepressants.
This viewpoint is supported by the Mayo Clinic, The Cleveland Clinic, as well as this 2019 study published by the national institutes of health, which draws from decades of research.
The above sources even clarify that withdrawal symptoms are not a sign of addiction.
Many psychiatric conditions are incurable. As a result, these lifelong conditions can only be treated by the lifelong administration of medicine.
Anyone who does not understand that should not have a say in public policy. Full stop.
Think it through to its logical conclusion.
ADHD does not go away. Depression (for many people) does not go away. Schizophrenia does not go away.
What happens to those people if they ‘voluntarily’ agree to go to a labor camp but never wind up ‘cured’?
Hint: They get worked to death.
Many psychiatric conditions are incurable. As a result, these lifelong conditions can only be treated by the lifelong administration of medicine.
I agree with you.
And I’m willing to entertain that maybe the word ‘addiction’ has a connotation that I’m not seeing, but as far as I can tell, there is certainly a physical dependence upon SSRIs. No one is abusing SSRIs or getting high, but if they cause the same withdrawal symptoms as drugs of abuse, and as severely, what would you call it if not addiction? Honestly asking, because I’m willing to be educated here.
What happens to those people if they ‘voluntarily’ agree to go to a labor camp but never wind up ‘cured’?
I would certainly hope that such a facility would be staffed by medical professionals who would be able to recognize “Nope, you need medication” in those cases.
Now, whether that’s what RFK is envisioning here is debatable. And it wouldn’t surprise me if he thought you could just put people to work and they wouldn’t need meds anymore. I have no desire to defend RFK or anyone else tapped to be in the next administration. I just don’t think it’s necessarily a bad idea to have a safe place available for people who need to deal with withdrawals for anything.
Addiction has a medical definition, not a connotation.
As previously shown, SSRI’s do not cause addiction, even if they can cause withdrawal or physical dependence for some people.
I guess I’m wondering if support of this policy has to be riddled with asterisks and accompanied by statements that express hopes of how the programs will be run, then why express any support at all for them?
And finally: There are safe places available for people to go if they feel they are having mental health issues that require more intensive care.
Mind you, these are really only available to people with health insurance - Regan largely killed off federal and community mental health care in the 80’s. Care that cannot be replaced with a labor camp.
The only proper replacement for that care is rebuilding that/those system(s), and that is not what RFK is proposing. He’s proposing a labor camp to take advantage of and imprison away vulnerable populations.
Sure. Just don’t expect me to get out of bed on your “farm”, Maggie.
What a horrible misunderstanding of how addiction works.
Might as well tell people with cancer to just think they don’t have cancer and they’ll be cured.
It’s very common to be misdiagnosed with depression and put on an SSRI when it’s not going to help. (SSRIs will generally not help a mood disorder like bipolar, for instance). SSRIs are highly addictive in that discontinuing them often comes with pretty severe withdrawal. So it’s not just a matter of “you can think your way out of depression” because a lot of people quit SSRIs for very good reasons - moving to a more appropriate treatment being one of them, and often it requires hospitalization because of how awful the withdrawal is, even with tapering the dose down.
I am not a fan of RFK Jr. Politically I’m a good distance to the left of liberal. But honestly, if implemented correctly this could help a whole bunch of people who are trapped on SSRIs prescribed by a doctor who didn’t really know how to diagnose them, and could also help a lot of nonviolent offenders who just need help beating their addiction. I understand that ‘if implemented correctly’ is a big ask with this administration, but let’s maybe not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Remember these days you ran interference for RFK Jr because you were too afraid to face up to the truth of what he was actually suggesting. It is a sour feeling and I say that with experience. People said the same thing about migrant camps and family seperation at the border. They said the same about Roe v Wade. They said the same thing about random deportations. Assuming you’re being genuine I have to ask you to learn to expect the worst and merely hope for the best. This man aggressively doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about and when you defend him you sound the same way.
If you read this and saw me defending RFK, you misinterpreted me. I specifically said I’m not a fan.
This is what I am saying. Antidepressants are highly addictive and it doesn’t get talked about. The commenter I replied to said that this article deeply misunderstands addiction, which I interpreted to mean that the commenter doesn’t know how addictive SSRIs are. That’s not surprising, a lot of people don’t know how addictive they are. There are many valid reasons to stop taking an antidepressant, and it’s very difficult. We should do something to help those people besides force them to check into a psych ward. That’s what I said, and I meant it.
