Narconon International
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| Formation | 1966 |
|---|---|
| Founder | William Benitez, L. Ron Hubbard |
| Type | Drug rehabilitation program |
| Headquarters | Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States |
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President
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Clark Carr |
| Website | narconon |
Narconon International (commonly known as Narconon) is an organization that promotes the theories of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard regarding substance abuse treatment and addiction. Its parent company is the Association for Better Living and Education (ABLE), which is owned and controlled by the Church of Scientology. Headquartered in Hollywood, California, U.S., Narconon operates several dozen residential centers worldwide, chiefly in the United States and Western Europe. The organization was formed in 1966 by Scientologist William Benitez with Hubbard's help. Benitez contacted Hubbard after reading his book, Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought and Narconon was incorporated in 1970.
While both the Church of Scientology and Narconon state that Narconon is a secular program, that it is independent of Scientology, and that it provides legitimate drug education and rehabilitation, Narconon has been described by many government reports and former patients as a Church of Scientology front group.
The program has garnered considerable controversy as a result of its origins in Scientology and its methods. Narconon has claimed that mainstream medicine is "biased" against it, and that "people who endorse so-called controlled drug use cannot be trusted to review a program advocating totally drug-free living." Narconon has said that criticism of its programs is "bigoted", and that its critics are "in favor of drug abuse ... they are either using drugs or selling drugs." Its drug rehabilitation treatment has been described as "medically unsafe", "quackery" and "medical fraud", while academic and medical experts have dismissed its educational program as containing "factual errors in basic concepts such as physical and mental effects, addiction and even spelling".
Hubbard's writings, which underlie the program, state that drugs and their metabolites are stored in the body's fatty tissue, causing the addict's cravings when partially released later on, and can be flushed out through a regimen known as Purification Rundown, which involves exercise, sauna and intake of high doses of vitamins. Whereas some have said that this hypothesis is contradicted by experimental evidence, and is not accepted by mainstream medicine or education,there have been at least seven peer-reviewed published papers between 1984 and 2012 attesting to the efficacy and healthfulness of the Hubbard sauna detoxification protocol. Although Narconon's claimed 75% to 80% success rate has been refuted by both drug experts and former employees, there has been one peer-reviewed published paper (authored by Narconon executive Marie Cecchini Sternquist) studying Narconon’s post-graduation “routine outcome monitoring” which validated this success rate, at least at Narconon Arrowhead. Narconon's facilities have been the location of several deaths, some of which have been linked to a lack of trained medical personnel on site. There are no independently recognized studies that confirm the efficacy of the Narconon program.
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