Is scientology in your schools?

Humanist, Sept-Oct, 2004 by Robin Jacobs

   Narconon has done numerous internal studies to
   verify its claims, but Carr acknowledged they "are
   really not that solid." Narconon never has submitted
   in its 37 years in the United States to independent,
   clinical study necessary to silence critics, Carr said.

Shortly after the stories in the San Francisco Chronicle appeared, the Humanist interviewed Carr, who explained that he has worked with Narconon for eighteen years and that he ran a Narconon center for ten. He noted that during his stint at the center he had helped people through harrowing addictions. What Narconon does is "joyous" good work, he said and cited Narconon's "spotless" record with parents and students as well as "inches" of studies and conferences backing up the scientific validity of the program. Carr also accused the San Francisco Chronicle of running a campaign with an agenda against Scientology, describing some contributors to the Chronicle story as "hatemongers" who disparage Narconon's program. "It just makes me want to punch someone in the nose," he said. According to Carr, Asimov's article "is creating controversy where there is not one."

Regarding other drug information offered in Narconon public school lectures and programs, Asimov (a niece of the late Isaac Asimov) informed the Humanist that, at a school lecture she attended, Narconon presenter Tony Bylsma told students that forty-three chemicals in tobacco cause cancer. The actual number, according to a spokesperson at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Studies consulted by the Humanist, is sixty-nine. Bylsma also warned students that 400 chemicals enter the body when one smokes marijuana (1,400 if the paper is counted), and sixty of these cause cancer. Countering this, Marijuana Policy Project spokesperson Bruce Mirken told the Humanist that no research data leads to the conclusion that there are sixty cancer-causing chemicals in marijuana. Although it would seem reasonable that smoking marijuana in the same quantities as tobacco might cause lung cancer, numerous sources--including the website of the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine--post reports saying that there is no epidemiological evidence for increased risk among chronic marijuana users. A report on the World Health Organization website indicates that case controlled experiments are still needed to determine whether or not marijuana causes cancer.

Other parts of Narconon lectures have parallels in Scientology doctrines. Students have been told that one problem with drugs is that they "scramble mental pictures," these pictures being another name for Scientology's engrams. But perhaps most revealing is the practice at the conclusion of lectures when students are asked to give a round of applause for Hubbard and Benitez. This is such a standard feature that, in Florida in 1999, when a member of the Pinellas County School District's Family Life Education Committee asked if Narconon presentations could be given without it, the answer was a clear "No." Dave Troutzkey, a research professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University, and an online free speech advocate who has had several run-ins with the Church of Scientology for his website critiques at www.stop-narconon.org, recently elaborated on this for the Humanist: