Fresh off his Senate confirmation vote to become the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Thursday that he is “worried about” the normalization of high-potency marijuana and that he feels its use can have “really catastrophic impacts” on people, but that state-level legalization can facilitate research into its harms and benefits.
Kennedy, who was vocal about his support for marijuana legalization when he was running for president—as well as during his time on the Trump transition team—has been notably silent on cannabis policy issues over recent months as he worked to win over senators to secure confirmation for the country’s top health role.
Now, during his first major media interview since receiving that final vote to secure the cabinet position earlier in the day, Kennedy told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham that he believes cannabis does hold serious harm potential.
The HHS secretary, who personally struggled with drug addiction during his youth, was asked about his cannabis policy position and noted that he’s been in recovery for over 40 years and attends daily 12-step meetings.
“I hear stories all the time of the impacts of marijuana on people—and the really catastrophic impacts on them,” he said.
However, Kennedy said “that worry also has to be balanced [with] the impacts that we’ve had before” as it relates to criminalization.
“Twenty-five states [have] now legalized marijuana, but we had about a third of our prison population that was in jail because of marijuana offenses,” he said. “That’s something we don’t want either.”
“Because of the legalization of recreational marijuana in 25 states, we have now a capacity to really study it and to compare it to states,” he said. “We need to do studies. We need to figure it out, and then we need to we need to implement policies to address” any health concerns.
Of course, HHS has already completed a comprehensive scientific study into cannabis that led the agency under the Biden administration to recommend moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
The new comments come on the same day that Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) said he received a commitment from Kennedy to “follow the science on the harms of marijuana.”
Ricketts had already disclosed last week that he spoke to Kennedy about the the “importance” of “preventing the expansion of marijuana.” Now he says “RFK committed to me that he would follow the science on the harms of marijuana.”
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