Updated website by Chris Owen
From: ronthewarhero@yahoo.co.uk (Chris Owen)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Letter to Nevada Assembly members re Second Chance
Date: 15 Feb 2003 14:20:56 -0800
Message-ID: <f758becc.0302151420.4101f54d@posting.google.com>
I e-mailed the following letter to Nevada assembly members about the
Narconon/Second Chance programme currently being touted by
Assemblywoman Sharron Angle:
Dear ...,
I read in the Reno Gazette Journal of February 13 that the Nevada
Department of Corrections was considering a prison rehabilitation
program based on the Second Chance program, which is currently
operating in the Ensenada State Prison in Baja California, Mexico. DoC
Director Jackie Crawford has already been to see the Ensenada program
and a number of your colleagues are due to visit in March.
I would encourage you to scrutinise this very carefully. The same
program was submitted for consideration to the Arizona Department of
Corrections in March 2001. In the words of the ADC's Director, Terry
Stewart and George Weisz, Executive Assistant to Governor Hull, it was
rejected because:
- "there is not one nationally recognized United States drug treatment
organization that has evaluated the program or the methodologies used
in their studies to indicate that it is efficacious to use that
treatment modality";
- "the program will be challenged because people will claim the State
is confusing church and state, because of L. Ron Hubbard's religious
association with scientology";
- "the method of treatment in Second Chance involves the ingestion of
vitamin liquids, which ADC would not be able to enforce, and can cause
liver damage ... this would open the door for law suits by prisoners";
- the "impressive statistics of low recidivism" claimed for Second
Chance are based on questionable evaluation processes and "could be a
false reading on how effective the program is".
These comments were made in the Arizona State Senate's Judiciary
Committee meeting of March 27, 2001, the minutes of which can be read
on the Internet at http://www.azleg.state.az.us/legtext/45leg/1r/comm_min/senate/0327jud.doc.htm
.
Second Chance is a modified version of a Church of Scientology program
called Narconon, which I have documented at
http://www.narconon-exposed.org . I have brought together in one place
a wide selection of commentaries and analyses of L. Ron Hubbard's
detoxification methods, including a number of reports by state
authorities. The latter are all uniformly critical. In fact, I know of
no published official report that has found the Hubbard program to be
safe and effective.
In particular, I would like to alert you to three reports of
particular relevance to this situation. The Michigan Department of
Corrections found in 1980 that "graduates of the [Hubbard] program do
not do as well as our [prison] population in general" and terminated
funding for the program's operations in Ionia State Prison. The
Oklahoma Board of Mental Health in 1991 found that the program was
"unsafe" and "ineffective" and denied it certification. The Swedish
National Board of Health and Welfare found in 1996 that "there is no
documentation to show that the Hubbard method of detoxification from
drug abuse conforms to scientific standards and medical experience"
and recommended that it "should not be used in Swedish medical care."
These reports can be accessed from
http://www.narconon-exposed.org/sources/critical.htm .
I hope that you find this letter useful in guiding your decision on
whether or not to endorse Second Chance. If you need further
information, please do not hesitate to contact me.
-------------
I've since received replies from a number of Assembly members,
including one who stated: "Don't worry - there's NO chance we'll be
funding Second Chance in our prison system." I'd say this one's dead
in the water...
| Chris Owen - ronthewarhero@OISPAMNOyahoo.co.uk |
|---------------------------------------------------------------|
| NARCONON EXPOSED: The full facts about the Narconon program |
| http://www.narconon-exposed.org |