Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s history with drugs includes 14-years as a heroin addict, allegations he sold cocaine and he may still smoke hallucinogenic substances “for fun” despite being sober.
The Secretary of Health and Human services, now 72, made a flippant admission last week that he isn’t afraid of germs because he “used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats,” but his use of illegal substances goes far beyond that.
The vaccine skeptic once told a New York magazine reporter, “My adolescence went on until I was 29,” and said his drug use began soon after the assassination of his father, New York Senator Robert Kennedy, during his presidential campaign in June 1968, when Kennedy was 14 years old.
He says he was introduced to both LSD and methamphetamine on the same day that summer by friends and his neighbors on Cape Cod.
“They said, ‘try this,’ it was a line of crystal meth. I took it, and all my problems went away … 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,” he said in a speech at the Rx and Illicit Drug Summit in Nashville in April 2025.
Growing up, Kennedy was suspended from a handful of boarding schools, including Millbrook in the Hudson Valley for repeated drug use. He allegedly sold cocaine from his dorm room at Harvard University, according to The Atlantic.
He also used to do drugs with Kirk Lemoyne “Lem” Billings, a school friend of his uncle, John F. Kennedy. Billings stepped into a surrogate father role for Kennedy after the death of his own father. Billings died in 1981.
(center). Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
At one point, Kennedy contracted hepatitis C by sharing needles, according to reports.
Kennedy’s younger brother, David Kennedy, was found dead of a drug overdose in a Palm Beach hotel room in April, 1984. Another brother, Michael, spent time in rehab for an addiction to alcohol and sex. He died when he crashed into a tree on a family ski trip in 1997.
Kennedy said he “tried earnestly, honestly and sincerely to quit [drugs] constantly … like most addicts, I interpreted this as a moral failure, and a character failure, and that fed this addiction of morosity, of self-loathing, [and] of darkness,” he said in his Drug Summit speech.
In September 1983, when he was 29 years old, Kennedy was arrested for heroin possession when authorities in South Dakota found traces of the drug in his luggage.
He pleaded guilty and months later, shortly after his 30th birthday, was sentenced to two years’ probation, required to check into a rehabilitation facility and perform community service.
The volunteer work involved cleaning up the Hudson River which led to his career as a crusading environmental attorney, working for environmental nonprofit Riverkeeper.
He claims he has been diligently attending Alcoholics’ Anonymous meetings ever since.
“I know that the only way I stay sober is through taking responsibility for my daily actions,” Kennedy said during his speech. “I can have control over my behavior, my daily conduct, but not the world around me.”
However, he allegedly admitted to smoking a powerful psychedelic that can make users feel like they are having a near death experience, according to former New York magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi in her 2025 book “American Canto.”
Nuzzi, who details her alleged sexting relationship with Kennedy in her book, said Kennedy used psychedelics, including dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT.
“The Politician still did some psychedelics for fun,” writes Nuzzi, referring to Kennedy. “He described how he waited until his wife was not home to go outside and smoke DMT… The DMT was laced in cigarettes a friend had given him.”
DMT is the psychoactive ingredient in the drug ayahuasca, which has been used ritually and medicinally by Amazonian tribes for centuries. It is known to produce intense visual and auditory hallucinations, according to the Alcohol and Drug Foundation.
The department of Health and Human Services did not immediately a return a request for comment from The Post.
Kennedy, who is married to actress Cheryl Hines, has backed psychedelics as a potential therapy to treat trauma and depression in his role as HHS Secretary.
Kennedy proved to be a controversial pick to head the Health and Human Services Department for many reasons. Not only his past as a drug addict or the fact he has no qualifications in the healthcare field, but also his mistrust of vaccines and promotion of conspiracy theories.
In a scathing letter to the Senate on the eve of his confirmation hearings last year, his cousin Caroline Kennedy called Kennedy out for his former drug use and blamed him for being a bad influence on his other members of the family.
“Siblings and cousins who Bobby encouraged down the path of substance abuse suffered addiction, illness, and death while Bobby has gone on to misrepresent, lie and cheat his way through life,” she wrote in the Jan. 25, 2025 letter.
Kennedy’s statement about snorting drugs off toilets came during an interview on Theo Von’s “This Past Weekend” podcast. He was discussing how he wasn’t afraid to attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings during the pandemic, saying he wasn’t worried by germs because of his past drug-taking behavior.