

He was actually a lawyer and was fairly well known for defending environmental causes, minority groups, and disenfranchised communities
If he didn’t take this turn later he probably would’ve been remembered as a fairly decent man who turned his life around (a former heroin addict) and did good things
Instead he is known who destroyed the country’s healthcare system. I personally don’t believe he was ever a former addict. I think he was a shitty child of extreme privilege (objectively true) who was an asshole that stole shit from people and sold drugs despite having access to extreme wealth in his teens (objectively true) and kept doing heroin until he finally got caught by someone who couldn’t sweep it under the rug late into his law career (objectively true). At this point he had been doing heroin 10+ years and apparently quit for good with one rehab stint (highly suspect).
Given his privilege and the timing (late 80s) I suspect he got access to a corrupt doctor that wrote him tons of adderall scripts and he just changed his addiction to something “legitimate” (conjecture). Maybe he cleaned himself up over the next 40 years and that’s why he now he has such a beef against adderall and psych meds now. Classic right wing projection: I can’t take these without slamming 25 a day and become a methd up zombie so I assume everyone is the same (also conjecture, obviously).
Fentanyl isn’t as dangerous when you’ve been slamming dope every day for a decade, you might purposely seek it out at that point
He also got into Harvard law despite being by his own admission a total fuckup. If you or I spend our adolescence committing crime and doing drugs we don’t get to go to Harvard but rfk got rewarded for his continual shitty decisions with one of the most prestigious educations followed up by an elite career in law. I am sure it was not a secret he was using the entire time and yet he continued to fail upwards. At least at this point he did some good for the world. Too bad he’s undone it all and then some (another measles outbreak today in Kansas)