(Part Two)
At Narconon Trois-Rivières and other Narconon centers, physician-prescribed medications have been withheld from patients, with detrimental consequences. Some have attempted suicide and others had seizures while in Narconon staff care. In 1984, a 34-year-old French woman named Jocelyne Dorfmann died from an untreated epilepsy crisis while undergoing treatment at a Narconon center in Grancey-sur-Ource (near Dijon). The assistant director of that center was sentenced for lack of assistance to a person in danger and the Narconon facility was closed. In Italy, a 33-year-old Italian female patient of the Narconon center in Torre dell’Orso died under similar conditions in 2002.
Medications were withheld at Narconon Trois-Rivières on several occasions, which the writer will address later in this article.
In the Narconon sauna Purification Rundown book, Clear Mind Clean Body, L. Ron Hubbard writes that all drugs are “essentially poisons, including tranquilizers and other medicinal drugs, and for those who have had drugs of any kind, there is no other rescue that is effective,” referring to the Narconon detoxification program. Narconon claims that all drugs are poisonous and remain in the body permanently — claims that are thoroughly discredited by modern science.
Psychiatric drugs are seen differently. Scientology and Narconon forbid the use of all psychiatric drugs and they work to prevent non-Scientologists from using them as well. Scientologists are vehemently opposed to all forms of psychiatry — not just for themselves, but for everyone. Since drugs are prescribed for serious medical conditions, including epilepsy and Graves’ disease and many other diagnosed medical conditions, they help the suffering cope and function in society, and these individuals are at serious risk if they stop taking the medication.
If a Narconon patient is taking prescribed Tylenol #3 or even aspirin, the patient’s program therapy is halted and the patient’s file is shelved. Scientology-Narconon belief doctrines about auditing sessions (Narconon Book 4a – Objectives) claims, for example, that aspirin will “inhibit the ability of the thetan to create mental image pictures” and render the thetan as a result “stupid, blank, forgetful, delusive and irresponsible.” “He gets into a ‘wooden’ sort of state, unfeeling, insensitive, unable and definitely not trustworthy, a menace to his fellows actually.” Students are not permitted “on course” (to undergo Scientology training or receive Scientology services) if they have taken aspirin within the previous 24 hours.
The Church of Scientology even today still publishes claims by Hubbard that the reactive mind “is the only thing in the human being which can produce … arthritis, bursitis, asthma, allergies, sinusitis, coronary trouble, high blood pressure, and so on, down the whole catalog of psychosomatic ills.” Thus, only Scientology auditing sessions can rid a person of these medical ailments.
Page 31 of Narconon Course Book 5 states: “There are certain characteristics and mental attitudes which cause about twenty percent of a race to oppose violently any betterment activity or group.” This “antisocial personality,” of course, refers to anyone who speaks out against Scientology-Narconon.
Page 228 of Narconon Book 5 states that “ALL ILLNESS, IN GREATER OR LESSER DEGREE, AND ALL FOUL-UPS STEM DIRECTLY AND ONLY FROM A PTS CONDITION.” This refers to any person who does not fall into the category of “antisocial personality,” but is in contact with one who does. This is when Narconon invokes the Scientology “disconnection policy,” as stated by Narconon Trois-Rivières director, Marc Bernard on July 13, 2010 to Le Nouvelliste, a newspaper in Trois-Rivières: “This is when negative things happen to us and this is why the method encourages ‘disconnection’. This is what is taught in the writings that we work with.”
Narconon Book 5 goes on: “And unless the condition is relieved, no matter what medication or nutrition he may be given, he might not recover and certainly will not recover permanently: This seems to indicate that there are ‘other illnesses or reasons for illness besides being PTS.’ To be sure, there are deficiencies and illnesses just as there are accidents and injuries. But strangely enough the person himself precipitates them because being PTS predisposes him to them.” (Page 259)
It is evident and quite clear that Narconon teaches Scientology religious scripture doctrines. To emphatically state that “NO matter what medication may be given — he certainly will not recover permanently” is contrary to any scientific, medical diagnosis and advice and certainly not practiced in normal drug detoxification centers whatsoever. As described by the medical profession, Narconon is pseudoscience and a practice that is considered to be without scientific foundation.
On a subtle gradient, the Narconon patient is fed misinformation about the psychiatric profession. This begins on page 312 of Book 5, “How To Disconnect”. “How a disconnection is done depends on the circumstances. Example: A person lives next door to, say a psychiatric clinic and feels PTS due to this environment. The remedy is simple — he can move to another apartment in another location. He need not write any sort of disconnection letter to the psychiatric clinic. He simply changes his environment which is, in effect, a disconnection from the suppressive environment.”
Notable is the statement on page 337 of Narconon Book 5: “For twenty years, Narconon has been setting the pace in the field of drug rehabilitation, with (per independent studies) a 70 to 80 percent success rate in helping people to come off drugs — and stay off them.”
In Narconon Book 6 (page 75), Hubbard takes a twisted path of misinformation to bash not only drugs designed by the U.S. Army, but also weapons and politicians: “For a man to develop a weapon capable of destroying all life on this planet (as has been done with atomic weapons and certain drugs designed by the U.S. Army) and place it in the hands of the criminally insane politicians is obviously not a survival act.”
Hubbard again attacks politicians in Book 6 on page 156: “These rich political and financial criminals are not happy; they may be envied by the common man for their wealth, but they are very unhappy people who more often than not come to grief eventually through drug or alcohol addiction, suicide or some other means of self-destruction.”
Again on page 563 of Book 6, Narconon enthusiastically promotes a 70 to 80% success rate.
Narconon Books 6 and 7 consist of using Scientology “demo kits” and “clay demos” to illustrate complex Scientology religious doctrines as prescribed by L. Ron Hubbard in Scientology policy manuals — a complex and frustrating process.
The patient is taught how to deliver a crippling “blow” to the psychiatric and pharmaceutical “industries” and is coerced into writing “letters of attack.”
The entire Narconon program consists of indoctrination and recruitment into the Church of Scientology and the patient is gradually led step by step through the processes, being controlled and brainwashed. In 2009, Narconon Trois-Rivières staff played a video from the Montreal Church of Scientology. It was one of many dozens produced by Scientology to disseminate its doctrine and discredit psychiatry and pharmacy companies as a whole. The video was indeed quite a disturbing propaganda attack against the medical profession and prescription drugs that save countless lives, permitting patients to cope and live productive lives in society.
The Scientology-Narconon campaign “Say No to Drugs” is a twofold endeavor to keep Scientology working by bringing in millions to the mother church, while at the same time attacking Scientology’s greatest adversary. One Hubbard bulletin (HCO PL 5 Oct 1971, PR Series 12) states: “’Psychiatry’ and ‘psychiatrist’ are easily redefined to mean ’an anti-social enemy of the people’”.
In another bold attack, Hubbard states: “Doctors are too often careless and incompetent; psychiatrists are simply put-right murderers. The solution is not to pick up their pieces for them but to demand medical doctors become competent and to abolish psychiatry and psychiatrists as well as psychologists and other infamous Nazi criminal outgrowths.” (Technical Bulletins, Volume XI, first U.S. printing of 1979).
Scientology’s current leader, David Miscavige, addressing the International Association of Scientologists (IAS) in 1995, said:
“There are a lot of opinions out there as to what is wrong with Earth, 1995 — unstable economies, unstable political arenas, criminality, drugs, injustice and so forth — obviously valid concerns. But if you really want to eliminate those problems all you have to do is work for the objectives that we, as members of the IAS, have set for the year 2000: Objective One — place Scientology at the absolute forefront of Society. Objective Two — eliminate psychiatry in all its forms. We don’t care what the current thinking is regarding what’s wrong with the planet. Government won’t handle it. Politics won’t handle it. Legislation won’t handle it. All that’s going to handle it is what we, of the IAS, have set down in stone. Let’s get rid of psychiatry, and let’s bring Scientology to every man, woman and child on this planet.”
Perhaps of grave concern to the government agencies investigating the Narconon Scientology rehab centers in Quebec and around the globe should be the safety and well-being of the vulnerable and very ill patients who attend these pseudoscientific drug detoxification centers.
Physician-prescribed medications that help a patient cope, that relieve severe pain, and, more importantly, that enable a patient to survive debilitating disease and organ failure, are being withheld by staff at Narconon Trois-Rivières and other Narconon centers. Recently at Narconon Arrowhead in the United States, a blood pressure medication was not given to a patient — the individual left the facility.
At Narconon Trois-Rivières, a young man was denied his medication, and attempted suicide by jumping out the second-floor window. Another victim who was well known by Narconon staff to be suicidal and was not given appropriate aftercare and follow-up, shot himself dead. A seriously ill patient in the drug withdrawal unit was not given any weaning medication to safely withdraw from severe alcoholism and was rushed by ambulance to a hospital emergency department in Trois-Rivières. A young woman who fell in the Narconon parking lot, fracturing her arm in 3 or4 locations, was taken to a hospital emergency ward. The attending physician ordered her to return the next day to set the fracture and apply a cast. The physician prescribed Tylenol #3 to alleviate her excruciating pain and help her rest through the night. The Narconon staff refused to administer the pain medication and the young lady suffered in tears. Most notable was a young man who was in the hot sauna program and was denied his insulin medication by a Narconon executive. When he arrived at the hospital emergency room, he was near death; only the immediate attention of emergency staff saved his life.
Perhaps one of the most dangerous practices at Narconon Trois-Rivières and many other Narconon centers is the “Say No to Drugs” campaign instituted by the Church of Scientology. No other part of the Narconon program leads to suicidal attempts and deaths like this “Say No to Drugs” campaign.
Clearly, this campaign is not merely about saying no to illegal street drugs, but to impose the dogma of Scientology creator L. Ron Hubbard and his successor, David Miscavige, and to attack proven science and medicine.
In 2011, the Quebec College of Physicians investigated the Narconon Trois-Rivières Medical Manager, patient physician Dr. Pierre Labonté (a Scientologist). Following several months of thorough investigations, the College reached its conclusion. To facilitate a comprehensive approach to the investigation, the College “solicited the opinion of an expert physician on drug dependence.”
On July 27, 2011, the College banned Dr. Labonté from ever associating with Narconon again. It further concluded that “Dr. Labonté had been in breach of several of his ethical obligations by associating himself with a drug detoxification center administering treatment not scientifically recognized in the current medical literature, by conducting an incomplete medical assessment, and by keeping records of mediocre quality.”
So is Narconon a credible rehabilitation treatment center that benefits society or is it a money machine and recruitment facility for the Church of Scientology. With the majority of the executive staff and many of the other employees being Scientologists, and many of the new staff recruited from those who recently completed the program, the image is clear.
A simple Google search for drug rehab solutions turns up unscrupulous websites that lure many vulnerable patients and their loved ones to Narconon with promises of high success rates and immediate placement into a treatment center.
Many patients pay extortionate sums of money, only to suffer from the scam experience, in many cases ending up in far worse condition and sometimes dead. Not only is this fraudulent con game illegal in Canada, but it questions the moral judgment and integrity of individuals and groups who propagate such evil in society.
In L. Ron Hubbard’s own words, “THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN CONTROL PEOPLE IS TO LIE TO THEM. You can write that down in your book in great big letters. The only way you can control anybody is to lie to them.” (lecture dated June 1952)
Notable are Dr. Gene Denk, Dr. Megan Shields, MD, and Dr. Steve Burton, MD, who are all Scientologists and endorse the Narconon Book 2, Clear Mind Clean Body. Dr. Denk was L. Ron Hubbard’s personal physician until Hubbard’s death in 1986. In a post-mortem blood test on Hubbard, traces of the psychiatric tranquilizer Vistaril were found. A psychiatric medication in the bloodstream of a man who had spent half of his life trying to dismantle the field of psychiatry?
The Narconon staff, who are also Scientologists, are well aware that the only way for a Narconon patient to remain clean and sober, according to L. Ron Hubbard, is to enroll in the “NED Drug Rundown” offered only at the Church of Scientology.
Scientology’s own words about the “NED Drug Rundown” say: “On this rundown, the harmful effects of drugs are erased and a person is freed from the compulsion or need to take drugs. This service handles drugs and the real reason a person started taking them in the first place.”
“Addressing drugs with NED technology removes the barriers that prevent progress up THE BRIDGE levels. It is a vital step on your NED program.”
What these quotations imply is that the Narconon program does NOT erase the harmful effects of drugs, nor does it free a patient from the compulsion or need to take drugs! Perhaps this is why the Narconon-promoted success rate of 70 to 80% is purely imaginary and in reality the failure rate is 80%.
David Edgar Love
