It’s Halloween, and Narconon is Very, Very Afraid

Posted on October 31, 2012

This is an extended version of KWTV-Channel 9′s report which aired last night about Scientology’s drug rehab program in Oklahoma — Narconon Arrowhead — which is under investigation for three deaths that occurred there over a nine-month period.

Reporter Dana Hertneky interviews Robert Murphy, whose daughter Stacy Dawn Murphy died at the rehab center in July, and David Love, who worked at a Narconon facility in Quebec and then helped to get it shut down. But she also talked to Narconon Arrowhead CEO Gary Smith, who is suddenly talking to the CBS affiliate and other Oklahoma television stations after refusing to give interviews for months.

Smith is letting in cameras and trying his best to look calm and relaxed. But we can’t help thinking this new strategy has “desperation” written all over it.

Gary Smith: What, me worry?

Oklahoma’s television and print press have been all over the developing story as multiple local and state agencies have been investigating the deaths at the rehab center.

Smith (or rather, one of his Scientology bosses) decided to try to stem the bleeding by offering interviews to the local TV stations. One of them, KOTV’s “News on 6″ largely gave Smith what he was looking for, presenting his statements without fact-checking them. But Hertneky and Channel 9 didn’t roll over that easily.

Smith is still trying to sell the idea that Narconon is not Scientology, and deliberately confuses the issue by saying that Narconon is not a “church.” Reporters tend to use weasel words like “Narconon is based on the teachings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard,” when a little digging should prove to them that not only is Narconon controlled by Scientology, but its methods are literally the same training that beginning Scientologists get.

This is easy to double check if you just look through Narconon’s materials. (Channel 6 briefly displays those materials on screen, but apparently didn’t read or understand them.)

The deaths are alarming, but they are the catalyst that is bringing attention to the larger problem: Narconon uses deceptive advertising to convince unsuspecting parents that they are sending loved ones to a facility that will actually provide drug counseling from professionals with 24-hour care and the presence of medical personnel. The reality is very different. Patients actually get little or no drug counseling but instead are drilled with the same Scientology training that beginning members of the church go through, they are treated by staff who are not professionals but simply former patients, and if there is a medical director, he or she is almost never at the facility, which has been shown in court documents.

Increasingly, that reality is getting out in places like Oklahoma and Georgia, where patient deaths have produced lawsuits.

Scientology hates the press with a passion, so we have to interpret Smith’s sudden openness as a desperation move.

While he’s clearly terrified, we hope the rest of you are enjoying this Halloween with good cheer. The bunker survived the frankenstorm, the animals are doing fine, and let’s all use our theta powers to push away the rain so the kids can get out and harvest sweets. Trick or treat!

PS: Speaking of local reporters taking on Narconon, tomorrow night Nathan Baca will be revealing a three-year investigation of Narconon that he’s been preparing for the Las Vegas station he’s been working for.

Baca is well known in the Scientology watching community for the thorough and amazing series about Scientology’s International Base that he did for a Palm Springs station several years ago. His stuff was better than most national TV reporting on the subject, and we can’t wait to see what he has on tap tomorrow night.

https://ortegaunderground.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/its-halloween-and-narconon-is-very-very-afraid/

check out the comments at the above link - couple of excellent ones below

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Narconon/junkscience.htm#niacin

Exclusive: Inside Narconon, CEO Answers Accusations About Deaths In Rehab

Posted: Oct 31, 2012 1:11 AM GMTUpdated: Oct 31, 2012 3:06 AM GMT

By Dana Hertneky, News 9 - bio | email

For the first time ever, our cameras are allowed inside the facility and we sit down with the man leading the treatment center.

CEO Gary Smith said students learn life skills and integrity to help them with their addiction and life afterward.

Gabriel Graves (top, left), Hillary Holten (right) and Stacy Dawn Murphy (bottom, left) all died while in the care of Narconon Arrowhead in a nine-month span.

EUFAULA, Oklahoma -

Narconon Arrowhead has become a frequent name in the headlines. After three recent deaths, multiple agencies are investigating the embattled drug treatment facility and its ties to the Church of Scientology.

It's also facing several lawsuits. For the first time ever, our cameras are allowed inside the facility and we sit down with the man leading the treatment center.

CEO Gary Smith said students learn life skills and integrity to help them with their addiction and life afterward. The walls inside Narconon reveal its ties to Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Smith said they get financial support from the Church of Scientology. However Smith said that is as close at the connection goes.

"Not accurate to say it's Scientology because Scientology is a religion," Smith said. "We're not a religion."

Smith said their unique program uses a sauna and vitamins to rid a patient's body of drugs. Then using Hubbard's philosophy, teaches them to reject bad influences once on the outside. The program works, according to Smith, often when other programs don't.

As proof, Smith introduced us to Tina Baker, who graduated from Narconon in 2011.

"The minute I walked into the door, I felt safe," Baker said.

A self-described raging alcoholic, Baker said she's now clean.

"I feel like they saved my life and I couldn't ask for anymore," Baker said.

But some former patients tell the opposite story, of bizarre treatment, where patients are isolated from family, and drug use runs rampant.

Former students said, at times, staff members offer up drugs, sometimes in exchange for sex.

David Edgar Love was a patient and employee of Narconon in Canada.

"It's really amazing, horrible creepy stuff," Love said.

He alleges Narconon Arrowhead is simply a front for the Church of Scientology, raising money by preying on the vulnerable then recruiting them.

"They're teaching you how to be controlled and they're also teaching you how to control others," Love said.

According to Smith, three quarters of the staff are former students. Those that aren't given jobs working with patients are sometimes offered positions recruiting new ones.

Former patient Erica Loftis told us, "They said bonuses could be about $3000 for every person I could pull in."

L.D. Linton called the Narconon number, looking for help for her grandson, Dusty, who was addicted to heroin.

"It sounded like God has just answered my prayers," Linton said.

But the $30,000 price tag was too high.

Linton said the Narconon staff told her, "We can work this out, can you get a second mortgage on your house."

But she and her family were impressed with Narconon's statement of a 70 percent success rate and came up with the money. But now say what Narconon is selling is false hope. Five days after Dusty graduated from Narconon, he overdosed.

Narconon Arrowhead is Narconon's premier facility in the United States. Those who want to shut it down believe if they are successful here, the rest across the country will follow.

Smith, a former addict himself, defended Narconon and its eight step program, saying they are doing good work in the face of the growing monster of addiction.

"We're not here to hurt people, we're here to help people, "Smith said. "None of us, including me, didn't sign up to have people die in the program."

But Robert Murphy is quick to point out people are dying. His daughter Stacey was found dead inside the facility. Murphy blames Narconon.

"From what I've been told, from the information I've been given, I absolutely believe they could have prevented her death," Murphy said.

Murphy recently filed a lawsuit against Narconon Arrowhead, alleging there wasn't enough medical personnel at the facility to help Stacey.

9/20/2012 Related Story: Narconon Records Could Prove Oklahoma Employee Misconduct

I-Team: Patients Struggle at Scientology Rehab Center

Posted: Oct 31, 2012 10:30 PM GMTUpdated: Nov 01, 2012 2:41 AM GMT
By Nathan Baca, Investigative Reporter - bio | email
By Alex Brauer, Photojournalist - email

CALIENTE, Nev. -- Former patients and employees are speaking out about a Nevada drug rehab center they describe as having mold and lice – and requires patients to try to move objects with their mind.

Narconon, an unlicensed rehabilitation center in Caliente, Nev., is connected to the Church of Scientology, but many parents sending their children there claim they were never told that.

The I-Team has been investigating Narconon for nearly three years. The center is about 100 miles northeast of Las Vegas in Lincoln County.

It's rarely inspected and is isolated from the outside world.

***

A break on the pool table for a game between a once-broken family, when a drug addiction tore the Vandergriend family apart.

Justin Vandergriend, an opiate addict, went into therapy, paid for by his parents for a sum of $35,000.

He described the therapy he received as not conventional.

"Talking to walls, sitting two inches from somebody in a chair, looking them eye to eye," Vandergriend said, describing his therapy. "Almost as if you're trying to steal their soul and if you were to move, flinch, act irritated whatsoever, they would throw you out and put you back in for a new two hours."

He also said he had 42 days of sauna detoxification treatments.

"After 15,000 milligrams of niacin, it's pretty much a hot burn that goes through your skin," he said.

***

Narconon's therapy books are written by the late L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology.

Hubbard's religion taught that the body was infested by alien spirits he called thetans.

Hubbard wrote in 1968 the spirits dated back 75 million years ago from a galactic civil war against an overlord named Xenu.

"There was times they would throw an ashtray up there and they would say, ‘Try to levitate this with your mind. Control this ashtray,'" Vandergriend said.

Recovering alcoholic John Anchondo is another former Narconon patient.

"It's crazy," he said. "How do you tell an ashtray to lift up? I mean, come on."

He said that inevitably failing the ashtray test set patients back.

"They say, ‘You flunk,'" Anchondo said.

After completing the program, Narconon chose Anchondo to sell the treatment plan to other families.

Anchondo said Narconon deceptively markets themselves to parents.

Justin Vandergriend's mother, Camille, said she called a number of 800 numbers trying to find a drug rehab center for her son.

"I talked to one gal who I was very impressed with and she in turn had a representative call me back," Camille Vandergriend said. "Unbeknownst to me, he was a representative from Narconon."

A source currently employed at Narconon told the I-Team they buy up several of the top websites shown on Google for drug rehab, redirecting calls to a Narconon phone bank.

"It was all bull****," Anchondo said. "The whole thing was to get them into our centers. If they didn't have money, then we'd refer them out to some homeless -- but man, I was good.

Anchondo further claimed Narconon's finely-polished marketing effort was built on lies.

"I'd tell them, ‘Look. Either they're going to die, or you know, send them to us.' I'm not going to lie to you. I did save a lot of people. The thing was, they didn't understand it was Scientology. You couldn't tell them that. It was like, why?'"

Anchondo said the secrecy came from the "top of the brass."

***

Caliente is the kind of town built around a train stop where the train doesn't stop anymore.

There is one thing that does stops here -- people's willingness to talk on camera about Narconon.

Just south of the town, the Narconon lodge is on a hillside surrounded by ranchland.

The I-Team attempted to speak with Narconon management.

At first, a woman named Kate approached the I-Team and declined an interview.

Another manager a day later gave the I-Team a cease-and-desist letter.

The I-Team then headed toward the former Caliente Hot Springs Motel in town.

Narconon leases the motel and keeps patients there.

"There's mold in our room," Justin Vandergriend said. "Within the first two nights, me and my roommate Yann were experiencing bites from bed bugs."

After the I-Team's visit to Caliente, Narconon sent an overnight package to 8 News NOW.

It included promotional materials and a letter from the executive director thanking the I-Team for their time and attention.

Inside were dozens of testimonial letters from former patients. But because their names were not included, the I-Team cannot verify their statements.

Vandergriend said he received the therapy he needed, not from Narconon, but from another drug rehab center.

The smiles and the fun the Vandergriend family have now hide a pain -- a pain in feeling they nearly lost their son, not from what his family didn't do, but in where they chose to send him.

Camille Vandergriend said she "absolutely" let her son down.

***

Narconon is not licensed as a drug rehab facility in the state of Nevada but is allowed to operate because of what some officials call a gaping loophole.

The I-Team's Nathan Baca will take a look at state licensure Wednesday at 11 p.m.

OLDIE BUT GOODY

An Australian woman named Valeska Paris used to be a member ofTommy Girl's Happy Time Fun Church Of Crazy (aka Scientology) and is now talking to the media about how she was pretty much forced into doing slave labor on the organization's cruise ship called Freewinds (not to be confused with Rosie O'Donnell's Big Gay Cruise). Valeska was allegedly sent to work on the ship as punishment after her mom quit Scientology. For 12 years, Valeska slaved away for up to 18 hours a day on the ship's lower levels and was treated like shit out of a Thetan's ass by Scientology's head bitch in charge David Miscaviage. Valeska somehow got away and even though she's permanently scarred and can't even watch a Carnival cruise ship commercial without busting into a panic attack, she has amazing stories to tell. Some of those stories came from the time she workedTommy Girl's big gay birthday extravaganzaaaaaa in 2004. Nobody brings the crazy like Scientology so you know this shit is going to be good.

Valeska tells the Village Voice (via The Superficial) that before his imperial space highness beamed down onto the ship, the slaves were told to only address him as "sir" and to not ask him for an autograph. The party was basically a giant finger banging Tommy in the butt. It was a Tom Cruise-theme party and there posters of his movies everywhere and the band played songs from his movies (except the ones he did with Nicole Kidman). But Valeska didn't even get to work Tommy's birthday party because her lip committed an act of treason:

“David Miscavige saw that I had a cold sore, and I was assigned to lower conditions and I was put in isolation for 4 days,” she says. She explains that she was assigned the “condition” of “Treason,” which is below “Enemy” but above “Confusion.”
“I was in Treason. So I wasn’t allowed to go to Tom Cruise’s birthday.”

So that's why Katie "Herp Sore" Holmes always looks like she's been chained to a steam pipe for days on an end. Because she has!

Valeska wasn't the only woman on the ship who got punished:

And she says three young women from the IASA—the administration of the International Association of Scientologists—were disciplined after the party. "They were trying to get Tom's attention. So they were put in the engine room."

They really should've just put all of the women in the engine room at the beginning of the party, because we all know how pussies burst out a tsunami of barley cream every time Tommy sashays around. David Miscaviage knows this and warned the females of the crew before Tommy arrived:

“He said, ‘Tom Cruise is coming and I need really good service, so who’s going to serve him?’ A woman spoke up. ‘No, no, it can’t be a woman, because he’s so good looking, any woman would fall for him.’ So a guy had to take the job,” she says.

If you gathered a million people in the same place and told that line, their full body laughs would send the earth flying into Xenu's volcano. They should make wallpaper with that line on it and cover the closet walls with it. Yeah, Tommy can't get near any woman or they will instantly fall in love with him, which is why he only surrounds himself with hot man pieces. "Sorry, I can't fuck you, because you have a vagina and you'll instantly fall in love with me" is probably a line Tommy used often. Well played, Tommy!

Here's a video from Tommy's birthday party of him trying to sing with The X-Factor's Stacy Francis. This is like that awkward moment during your office holiday party when you realize that your drunk co-worker who is acting the fool isn't drunk, he's just naturally fucking crazy.

If I was at that party, I'd find a way to give myself a cold sore so I could be banished to the damn engine room and put out of my misery.

And here's Tommy sweating his pit Thetans off with Brad Bird and Paula Patton at the press conference for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol in Tokyo today. All you women folk, don't stare too long or else you'll fall in loooooove.