An anti-drug program tied to Scientology reappeared in Bay Area classrooms this school year – including at Los Altos High School – after a decade-long absence.
Free classroom talks by Narconon made their way back into public high schools throughout the state nearly a decade after the state Department of Education rejected the program for promoting phony science. Los Altos High hosted a Narconon presentation during the fall semester in a health class comprising primarily 10th-grade students.
According to Barry Groves, Mountain View Los Altos Union High School District superintendent, the health teacher received a recommendation for Narconon’s presentations and invited the group to speak to her class. Groves said that after learning of the talk, an assistant principal at the high school familiar with the program informed teachers that Narconon should not be invited back.
Groves said the district follows a mandatory state-adopted health curriculum. Health courses cover illegal drug use, and teachers are given the freedom to invite speakers of their choice to cover the material. As of now, Narconon is banned from the district and will remain so unless the program receives clearance from the state.
“When the state of California sends an advisory against it, I listen to the state,” Groves said.
Narconon claims that its curriculum has been “carefully revised” over the past decade, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle last week. However, the Chronicle, which has covered the school program in depth since 2004, continued to find scientific inaccuracies in the current information Narconon presents to students. One example: The claim that its sauna treatment removes drug residue from body fat.
According to Narconon’s website, William Benitez, a heroin addict, read a book by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology, that inspired him to establish the Narconon program in 1966. Benitez developed a controversial cleansing process, the “Purification Rundown,” that purports to eliminate “drug residues and other toxins from the body’s fatty tissues,” according to scientology.org.
