The controversial Scientology ‘treatment’ locals are against
THE programmes offered in Narconon drug rehabilitation centres are based on the writings of L Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology.
Despite claims that Hubbard developed a ‘safe, healthy and thorough method of purging drugs from the body’, the treatment has proven to be controversial.
Promised a natural and chemical-free recovery from addiction, those attending the facility – which is advocated by high-profile people including Kelly Preston, the actress wife of fellow Scientologist John Travolta – are cut off from their addiction cold turkey.
They are then given high doses of vitamins and minerals and denied any substitute drugs.
A recent documentary for Channel 9 in Australia said participants are expected to yell at inanimate objects, consume large amounts of vitamins, and sit in saunas for up to five hours.
Meath-based senator Ray Butler raised his concerns about the centres in the Seanad last month.
‘Basically, the patient gets vitamins and minerals as well as spending long times in saunas. This is brainwashing of the most vulnerable people,’ he said.
A Narconon centre in Arrowhead, Oklahoma, lost its licence and subsequently closed down in 2012 due to investigations into the deaths of four patients over a period of three years.
However, the deaths were never directly linked to the group’s treatment methods, and the Arrowhead centre later reopened as a certified ‘halfway house’.