------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------

Since 1969, an organisation called Narconon (for "non-narcosis") has operated a drug rehabilitation programme in the United States, Canada and Europe. It operates within prisons and in a number of purpose-built institutions, of which the largest is a 1,000-bed complex at Chilocco in Oklahoma. It is undoubtedly a profitable business; Federal income tax records show that one Narconon organisation, Narconon Inc. of Massachusetts, earned $715,771 from school lectures alone in the period 1989-94. It claims phenomenally high success rates in rehabilitating drug abusers, with anything up to 86% said to have been cured of their addiction.

Too good to be true? Maybe so, for a number of serious questions remain unanswered about Narconon, its therapy and its links with the Church of Scientology. These pages provide an independent look at Narconon and examine some matters on which the organisation is suspiciously silent. A variety of information previously published elsewhere on the Web has been brought together for the first time, and some new evidence suggesting close links between Narconon and the Church of Scientology is also presented.

1. What is Narconon?

2. What is the Narconon therapy programme?

3. Narconon's success rates

4. Medical validity of Narconon's practices

5. State support for Narconon

6. Narconon's supporters

7. Is Narconon safe?

8. Is Narconon controlled by Scientology?

9. Narconon and Scientology: a comparison

10. The Narconon Timeline

Source documents

 


With grateful acknowledgements to:

Gisle Hannemyr <gisle@ifi.uio.no>;
Tilman Hausherr
<
tilman@snafu.berlin.de>;
Cornelius Krasel
<
krasel@toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de>;
Diane Richardson
<
referen@ibm.net>
and FACTnet
<
factnet@factnet.org>.

------------------------------------------------------------

Back to start

Last updated 31 August 1998
by Chris Owen (chriso@lutefisk.demon.co.uk)