Pubdate: Fri, 20 Apr 2012
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2012 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/letters.html
Website: http://www.montrealgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Catherine Solyom

INSIDE NARCONON'S BIZARRE TREATMENTS

Discusses His Strange And Painful Experiences There. It Was Like 'one
Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Times 10,' He Says

MONTREAL - Perhaps the lowest point in David Love's "treatment" for
drug addiction at Narconon Trois Rivieres was the five-hour sauna on
his 25th day of five-hour saunas.

Being forced to yell at an ashtray for hours on end - "Stand up,
ashtray!" "Thank you." "Sit back down, ashtray!" - also left him
confused and frustrated. But it was when Love realized that the rehab
centre inspired by the teachings of Scientology was actually putting
vulnerable addicts' health at risk - and that he had become a part of
the machinery - that he decided to get out.

On Oct. 28, 2009, six months after he had gone from "graduate" of the
Narconon program to "Certified Counsellor," Love left the facility and
began a crusade to have it shut down. In July 2011, following his
complaint, the Quebec College of Physicians ordered Dr. Pierre
Labonte, Narconon's "medical manager," to cut his associations with
the centre, located about 125 kilometres northeast of Montreal. The
Quebec labour relations tribunal also mediated in Love's favour when
he complained about being paid $2.50 an hour as a staff member.

Then last Friday, 2 1/2 years after Love began his campaign, public
health officials for the Mauricie region ordered Narconon to relocate
its 32 residents and told the organization they would not certify the
centre, because its approach was not recognized in this province, and
that its practices, including the saunas and massive doses of niacin,
were potentially putting patients' health at risk.

Most of the patients, from B.C. and other provinces as well as the
United States, have since been relocated to Narconon centres in the
U.S.

As for David Love, he remains drug-free since he left Narconon - but
deeply traumatized by what he saw and went through in Trois Rivieres.

"I'll wake up from nightmares sometimes. I still have a very difficult
time sleeping," says Love, who has been diagnosed with post-traumatic
stress disorder by a psychiatrist at the Allan Memorial Institute.
"It's the intensity of the program they put you through, it affects
your psyche."

Love's saga with Narconon began after he was hospitalized in Vancouver
for a drug overdose. His daughter, then an Ethics Officer at Narconon,
suggested he should join her in Trois Rivieres for Narconon's
drug-free program. She could work out a deal whereby he could pay half
price - $11,500 - in bi-weekly instalments, using his unemployment
cheques. He agreed.

The first step, he says, is always in one of the withdrawal rooms on
the ground floor, where each patient spends the first three to 12
days. No physician is seen before or during drug withdrawal.

Then come the personality and IQ tests, performed at regular intervals
on patients, and the interrogation by an Ethics Officer to make sure a
patient, or "student" as Narconon calls them, is not an undercover
reporter.

Once cleared, the student can then begin the "Purification Rundown,"
4.5-to-five-hour-long sessions in the sauna, in conjunction with
massive doses of niacin. L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction author and
the founder of the Church of Scientology, believed that drug residues
are stored in the body's fatty tissues, causing the addict's cravings
when they are partially released later on.

But they can be flushed out through a regimen of exercise, sauna and
high doses of vitamins, particularly niacin, Hubbard believed.
According to Love, students got doses of niacin that far exceeded
Health Canada's recommended maximum of 500 mg a day.

In high doses, niacin is toxic to the liver, Love said. "And many
(Narconon) patients already have compromised livers because of their
alcoholism, and some have Hepatitis C."

The head of the Mauricie public health agency, Marc Lacour, said
Tuesday that at least four of the centre's patients had been taken to
hospital in the last few months, but for reasons of patient
confidentiality, the agency could not provide details.

Love also remembers a few who suffered when Narconon staff refused to
give them their medicine. On several websites used to attract
potential clients, Narconon boasts of its 70-to-75 per cent success
rate and entirely drug-free program - which even excludes prescription
drugs. In one case, staff members withheld insulin from a diabetic
patient undergoing the sauna treatment. That young man ended up in
hospital for three days, Love said. In another, it took away a
patient's anti-depressants. He jumped from a second-floor window in a
suicide attempt.

As for its success rate, in an interview with CBC this month, the
legal affairs director of Narconon, Andre Ahern, admitted Narconon
does not necessarily keep track of patients once they leave the
facility - so it cannot know how many have relapsed. Ahern did not
answer The Gazette's requests for comment Tuesday and Wednesday.

For Love, the lasting effects of the Narconon experience were
psychological.

The ashtray routine was just one of several training routines Love
says are designed to make students accept they are being controlled,
and teach them how to control others.

In another routine, two students were put in a room and repeatedly
ordered each other to go to a wall, touch a wall, pick up a bottle,
put it down, etc. The exercise could last hours, or several days, but
until students were deemed to have completed it they couldn't move on,
Love said.

"They wouldn't let a patient go on to the next stage until they were
'cracked,' " Love said, quoting from one of Hubbard's books.

"These things really affected me. Being forced to say there's nothing
more I can do.

"They'd say keep going, keep going, when people were in tears ... You
have no money, you don't know the language, you have nowhere to live,
no money for food, you're stuck there. You're f----d. You have to do
it. ... It was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest times 10."

When patients complained to parents who were paying the fees, staff
members would convince them that it was normal they should want to
leave, but that for their own good they had to complete the program.

Love only realized that Narconon was closely linked to the Church of
Scientology when he graduated from the program after five months, and
became a staff member. He was given $700 worth of Scientology books
that echoed the teachings in the Narconon books he already read.

Narconon often recruited former students to be staff, Love
said.

Lacour, of the public health agency, said that following several
complaints, Narconon Trois Rivieres has been more upfront recently
about its ideology. "They are no longer hiding the fact they are
inspired by Scientology, but they are not there to recruit," Lacour
said.

Love disagrees, and says he believes that on top of providing new
recruits to the church, Narconon, which has 50 centres in 22
countries, funnels money to it. Since 2005, when the centre in Trois
Rivieres opened, Love calculated it had treated 720 patients and
earned more than $16 million, much of which went to church executives
in the form of salaries, and donations to the church.

Love has received leaked emails that point to the close relationship
between the Church of Scientology in Montreal and Narconon Trois Rivieres.

Love, along with four other former patients, has filed a complaint
with the Quebec Human Rights Commission claiming that Narconon Trois
Rivieres exploited their disability - drug addiction - in getting them
in the program and having them do manual labour. Also named in the
complaint are the Church of Scientology International and Narconon
International.

Love also plans to attend a protest outside Narconon Trois Rivieres on
April 29 - even if its staff and residents have moved on to other locations. 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D