Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Drug Addiction: What He's Said So Far

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s drug addiction was part of a troubled period in his early life.

The son of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy told The New Yorker he first tried heroin when he was a teen. He used to do drugs with Lem Billings, a close family friend, at the latter's apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

In the book The Kennedys: An American Drama, an ex-girlfriend of one of RFK Jr.'s cousins recounted what usually happened at Billings' flat.

"There was always the period of sitting around making small talk. It was really a period of waiting for somebody to decide when and how we were going to score. Then there would be the fighting over who got to do it first," an excerpt read. "B----- needles. Doors slamming. Lem in his bathrobe and shorts yelling, 'Bobby, get in here quick,' and then going in to get his shot. The women were supposed to sit there waiting for the drug leftovers. It was always a macho scene, a shoot-out: which of them could do the most drugs, which of them could do the most women."

At 16, RFK Jr. appeared in a juvenile court alongside with his cousin Robert Sargent Shriver III on charges of possessing marijuana. They were placed on probation following a private hearing.

Years later, in September 1983, he was arrested on the tarmac when he overdosed on heroin in the airplane's bathroom while on a flight to South Dakota, where he was scheduled to receive a drug addiction treatment.

Opening up about becoming addicted when he was a teen, RFK Jr. told Lex Fridman, "I was addicted for 14 years. During that time, when you're an addict, you're living against conscience ... and you kind of push God to the peripheries of your life."

At a 2023 NewsNation town hall, RFK Jr. discussed his personal battles with addiction as he revealed his plans to legalize marijuana and psychedelics.

According to the then-presidential hopeful, he had been an addict for 14 years until the age of 28 following his father's death. As he went through 40 years of recovery, he revealed he had "a very good idea of what works" and that they "need to make some changes in this country."

"I would legalize psychedelic drugs — some form of legalization," he said. "I'm going to decriminalize marijuana on a federal basis, allow the states to regulate it, continue to tax it federally and use those taxes to fund the recovery programs. And I would do the same thing for psychedelic drugs, which I do not think should be criminalized."

He shared his experience, noting, "I have a very good idea of what works and a vision for what we need to do in this country — and we need to make addiction treatment easy, simple, cheap. A lot of the [drug treatment] industry has devolved, because of a variety of factors, into almost a predatory industry."

RFK Jr. pledged to use the controversial San Patrignano program as a model for the camps he planned to build in the U.S.: "I'm going to build these rehab centers all over the country, these healing camps where people can go, where our children can go and find themselves again."

During RFK Jr.'s confirmation hearing to serve as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Senator John Cornyn threw several questions at him, including his views on improving access to mental and behavioral health services.

"Millions of Americans are experiencing mild to moderate mental health and substance abuse issues, yet many struggle with timely and effective access," the senator pointed out. "Primary care physicians are most likely to be seeing these individuals as opposed to a specialist, and it makes it important that these individuals, primary care physicians, be trained in patient-centered care, which would strengthen the integration of behavioral health care with primary care services. Is this something that you are concerned about, something you'd be willing to work with us on in order to implement?"

RFK Jr. said it was a "priority" for him, adding, "I was a heroin addict for 14 years. I'm in 42 years in recovery… I hear the many stories about denial or the barriers to access to care, and we need to improve that."

RFK Jr. told the attendees of the Rx and Illicit Drug Summit in Nashville, Tenn., in April 2025 that substance dependency is "a source of misery but also a symptom of misery."

"Every addict feels that way in one way or another — that they have to fix what's wrong with them, and the only thing that works are drugs. And so threats that you might die, that you're going to ruin your life are completely meaningless," he said.

For 14 years of using drugs, he reportedly tried to quit as he "didn't want to be someone who woke up every morning thinking about drugs." However, he had a total "incapacity to keep contracts [with himself]."

Earlier in his speech, RFK Jr. spoke candidly about the time his friends and neighbors on Cape Cod introduced him to LSD and methamphetamine.

"They said, 'try this,' it was a line of crystal meth. I took it, and all my problems went away," he recalled. "My addiction came on full force. By the end of the summer, I was shooting heroin, which was my drug of choice until I was 28 years old."

RFK Jr. claimed his heroin use helped him improve his academic performance.

"I did very, very poorly in school, until I started doing narcotics," he said in an episode of the "Shawn Ryan Show" podcast during his presidential campaign. "Then I went to the top of my class because my mind was so restless and turbulent and I could not sit still."

He added, "It worked for me. And if it still worked, I'd still be doing it."

During an appearance on Theo Von's podcast on February 12, the Health and Human Services Secretary revealed the reason why he was "not scared of a germ" when the COVID-19 pandemic began.

"I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats," he confessed. "I know this disease will kill me, right? Like if I don't treat it, which means for me going to meetings every day, it's just bad for my life. For me, it was survival."

While appearing on The Armstrong Williams Show, RFK Jr. credited his faith for saving his life.

"Addiction is so today is much more dangerous now than when I was active in it, especially with the Fentanyl," he said.