SCIENTOLOGISTS ARE SOLVING THE PROBLEMS OF DRUG ABUSE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201000003-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: January 11, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201000003-5
NnT!RLf A RED WASHINGTON POST
H PAf, 11 January 1985
~ Scientologists Are Solving
The Problems of Drug Abuse
In early 1984, the Church of Scientology
submitted documents to the Canadian Minis-
ter of External Affairs and to the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) revealing that the
Canadian, U.S. and British psychiatric com-
munities had received funds from the U.S. and
Canadian governments to carry out secret and
brutal "mind control" experiments. These
experiments were conducted on unwitting
Canadian citizens with such mind-bending
drugs as LSD.
Canada was chosen as the site for these
tests as Canada, at that time, had no Charter of
Rights to protect its citizens from such
abuses. At the time of the Church's submis-
sion, nine victims of these savage experiments,
were suing the CIA for$1 million apiece for the
harm they had sustained at the hands of the
psychiatrists.
The Church asked the Canadian govern-
ment to investigate and prosecute the actual
criminals - the psychiatrists who had taken
the payments and then brutalized innocent
people. No investigation has occurred, how-
ever, to date.
The "treatments" used by the psychiatrists
included drug-induced "deep sleep" periods
lasting up to 60 days, during which the unwit-
ting and often unwilling subjects were given
numerous devastating electro-convulsive
shock treatments. Subjects were also given
repeated applications of mind-altering drugs
such as LSD. often against their will.
The Church has also exposed the reckless
testing of deadly chemical substances on
unwitting American citizens by the CIA and by
other U.S. government agencies. These
exposes have detailed, for example, how some
1,000 U.S. fighting men were used as human
guinea pigs in "mind control" experiments
with LSD and other even more powerful mind-
bending drugs at the Army's Edgewood Arse-
nal and elsewhere from 1954 to 1975.
Irresponsible actions such as these by our
own government help to explain why drug
abuse in America has been allowed to reach
such alarming proportions.
According to recent estimates, the United
States has some 32 million marijuana users,
more than 30 million people who take psychi-
atric drugs, 492,000 heroin addicts, and more
than 12-million cocaine users.
While the federal government estimates that
an incredible $53 billion are spent by Ameri-
cans on illicit drugs each year, there is remark-
ably little government effort to handle drug
problems, and still less work to prevent them.
For nearly 35 years, the Church of Scientol-
ogy has seen that drugs are a destructive influ-
ence in life, and has helped tens of thousands
of individuals recover from their damaging
effects.
STAT
The Church's work in the prevention and
reduction of drug abuse and drug-related
crime expanded greatly in 1966, when a heroin
addict serving time on his fourth sentence to
Arizona State Prison, Willie Benitez, found
that his 19-year drug addiction problem,
which had forced him into a life of -crime,
resolved through his studies of the works of
Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard.
Determined to help his fellow inmates with
similar drug problems, Benitez founded an
organization called Narconon. The word
comes from "non-narcosis," meaning free-'
dom from the stupor produced by drugs.
Narconon grew, spreading beyond the Ari-
zona prison's walls as men and women found
they could liver a new, happier and more pros-
perous life - without drugs.
Narconon today is thriving, with hundreds
of staff operating dozens of centers in the Unit-
ed States and in many countries overseas.
With nine new centers opening in the United
States, Holland, Spain and Italy in 1984, N8r-
conon is the fastest growing drug rehabiUta-.
tion program in the world.
As the Church of Scientology itself has
expanded, its work has improved the lives of
hundreds of thousands of people. With its
strong emphasis on the value of drug educa-
tion, the Church has, been diametrically
opposed to massive government support of
programs which foster drug use, including the
billions spent each year on psychiatric drugs.
Although the effectiveness of our technol-
ogy in salvaging people from the damaging
influence of drugs and our exposes of brutal
government-funded psychiatric experiments
have met with opposition from vested inter-
ests who stand to profit from a drugged Amer-
,ica, our work in making these abuses known
and freeing people from drugs will continue.
The Church of Scientology, in its continu-
ing war against the harmful effects of drugs, is
daily bringing about the miraculous freeing of
individuals from these toxic substances.
"Success stories" by the thousands have
poured in from people all over the world.
The Church has observed, in case after-
case, that an individual who has been freed
from the numbing effects of drugs is better
able not only to help himself, but to take
greater responsibility for others around him,
and for the society as a whole.
An individual thus freed is more himself and
is better able to pursue his own. true goals in
life, unclouded by the fog of drugs.
The Church of Scientology will continue to
expose those who would betray their fellow
man for the personal profit to be had in ped-
dling drugs. The Church is committed to free-
dom for the individual, and freedom from
drugs must be part of this. -
Church of Scientologya' International
1985 Church of Scientology 1nletnalonal
316 9ennirfvenis Ave.. s.E., wash,ngon. D.C. 20003
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201000003-5