But you make many assumptions about me. And I really try to do that," Jollett says. Largely, the squares were people looking for purpose and to be part of something. Instead it is led to countless deaths, destruction of lives and still continues today. I dont have to stay in it anymore. NIH had even started its own experimental synanon at the federal lockup hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. Synanon added the game and other systems of punishment to compel compliance that would be copied by many sociopaths seeking riches, as discussed below, and lead to horrors to the participants in the clones that exceeded what occurred in Synanon. "At that age, my response was to become the super kid. Out of 1,180 addicts who had entered Synanon in its first five years of operation, only 26 had graduated. Casriel teamed up with Father William OBrien to form Daytop Village which today is one of the largest therapeutic communities in the world. Its a calculated risk. Dr. Roger Meyer, a professor of psychiatry at Boston University, and formerly the Acting Chief of the Center for Studies of Narcotics and Drug Abuse at NIMH, was one of the first to question the wisdom of subjecting kids to the brutality of the Synanon Game. I was not for that idea, because I saw most members as victims. Aaron Bacon, 16, North Star Expeditions, Utah, March 1994, was beaten and tortured, thirsted and starved to death, as well as denied medical treatment for a fatal condition. In one of his many papers on Synanon, Ofshe noted that it is doubtful that all the therapeutic communities that cloned themselves after Synanon would have done so if they heard Mr. Dederich testify as he did in 1979: its always a mistake to let anyone into Synanon. I was taken there by my mother. Both AA and Synanon provided this insight, but unfortunately each bounded its members with an ideology and demand to never quit the organizations. In context, my conversation with Rod Janzen, as he certainly knew of me, and if he was a true journalist, he would have had to interview me to follow all leads. But I DO know the culture of Synanon. And yes, there is some bad grammar. And I still do. Its wonderful. In 1974 Rachman and Heller had noted that many youths had dropped out of TCs because the methods were geared to curing adult addicts. But nobody, especially Dr. Rogers, ever imagined children sitting in one continuous synanon 12 hours a day, 5 days a week for several yearswith 200 kids screaming and spitting at him, where the child could not verbally defend himself against his indicters, where he would be beaten and physically restrained, and, most importantly, where he could not leavenamely Straight, Inc. In other words Straight took a program that had been designed (and poorly so) to control hard-core adult heroin addicts and used it to control kids who had experimented with pot and alcoholsometimes worse, but sometimes no drugs at all. He would want to know the reasons that motivated me, if he was in search for the truth. Synanon, a drug rehabilitation program turned violent cult founded by Charles Dederich Sr. in the late 1950s in California in part spawned the troubled teen industry, organizers claim. He was so wrong and he refused to write many who studied Synanon came to an opposite conclusion. Here we go!' In law, lawyers too much use the technique of attacking opposing counsel when they cannot attack the facts. Many are dead, many are in prison ,and worse many roam the earth as emotional cripples from just having come in contact with Joe Ricci,and his henchmen that helped him run the Elan Corporation. Although I think this is waning some now Movies now are once again about heroes and less about femme fatales. But these rules had long been eradicated at Synanon the root of todays confrontational-type therapeutic communities. Dederich said those who left fell through the open manhole and would post descriptions of their calamities for all to see as a warning if they ever left. But before I wrote this, there were many before me who wrote the same thing trying to put an end to the warped Synanon system that as Dederich said was based on hate. I further told him that UCLA records were selective and I alone had Synanons internal documents which tells another story. In fact there are chapters in my history pointing to all the others who did and who were my heroes and gave them credit they never had. In terms of drug addiction, thats where it ends. I'm going to get up at 5:00, I'm going to feed the rabbits, I'm going to make myself breakfast, I'm going to make myself lunch, I'm going to walk to school. Whether a small town, island or, commune, they have a better chance for a part of the American dream than if on their own in the big city. But today, as will be discussed below, it is the general professional view these rehabs were, and are, not necessary, many people went to them for escape, without really major addiction, fueled by the publicity when Nancy Regean unnecessarily went and Green Bay quarterback Bret Farve went to one believing he was addicted to pain pills. (Joe Ricci was a former Daytop student who went on to found his own program for troubled youth in Maine called Elansee below.) First, while our government says that all people are equal the fact is they are not born equal. Synanons most important legacy was to fulfill sociologist Edgar Freidenberg prediction after reading Yablonskys book that the organization was punitive, brainwashed and would ultimately create a dangerous state of mind. Gina Score, 14, at the state-run juvenile prison camp at Plankinton, South Dakota, 1999 was run to death. No one knows the actual final fate of the 19. In 1972 he reported on the case of a 12 year old boy who had been admitted, along with older clients, to a second generation Synanon called The Odyssey House in New York City. Copyright Paul Morantz. Some children have been placed for nothing more than marijuana smoking, and some because the programs told the parents unless they gave them the younger kid they would expel the older sibling. So in that sense, Synanon contributed to the idea that one could get off addiction. You say it is unscientific nonsense, but prove that any of the statistics and studies were not accurate or that the events that took place in the clones did not happen. As I wrote the youth did not buy in as did the parents, you sound like one of them. If it had ended there, Synanons legacy would be far different and it would probably still be there. I responded to him that the media never knew the extent of the actual violence and as far as violence inside Synanon, how many incidents would you like to know about? Later I sent him a copy of the History of Synanon violence with over 80 incidents and he never responded nor did I hear from him again, nor did he ever apologize to the public for writing a book in which he intentionally avoided the actual evidence. Synanons punitive system of verbal attacks and humiliation was counterproductive and drove out most that entered. I was forced to watch twenty men and women beat a 14 year old girl in what we called a, Cowboy Ass kicking, for ten to twenty minutes. Yet by 1968, to justify ending graduation, if Dederich was correct, there was little success in curing addicts. Paul please post this comment and not the other two thank you sir. Further, while brainwashing might be a form of keeping a person from drugs, leaving all decision making to the masters was a recipe for disaster. Ofshe who had been allowed inside Synanon to study it contacted Dave Mitchell in 1978 to ask if he was serious about investigating Synanon because violence could not occur randomly under Synanons controls and can only occur at direction of management (later admitted by Dederich at deposition). I offered them to him but he declined. I talked with you briefly about Elan and of its closing. And with that all being announced on the wire, murder attempts begin. He became the one to blame, he was the angry one. As messages here seem to disappear and reappear per you request I am repeating it. That is, she was forced to run in the summer sun until she collapsed, and then she was left laying in the hot sun until she died. WebJan 2010 - Present13 years 2 months United States Im a CEDU Survivor who created & runs the Synanon Survivors Group on Facebook. Its like, its like the story Ive always told you, you know about the warden standing up on the, looking out the window of his office and down in the big yard and saying, Come here, George, watch em theyll all fuck each other pretty soon you know, we, we, we most of the people to come into our house and say I would like to live here and turn out to be very, very real crazy people. Following this broadcast, several executives of the NBC network and its corporate chairman allegedly received hundreds of threats from Synanon members and supporters. [31] NBC continued with a series of reports on the Synanon situation on the NBC Nightly News. Originally a nonviolent group, Diedrich created the Imperial Marines to maintain orderwithin and outside of the community. While Synanons bragging of curing drug addiction was far off from reality, its public relations system did promote the concept that drug addiction was not impossible to overcome as many had thought when Synanon was conceived. but if I missed something please tell me. Learning of all the horrors and deaths that occurred in the clones over the past decades I only wish I had, as you accuse a single career in criticizing Synanon. As to the above, I remain impressed with your apparent life long research into many areas, and you write so much, it is hard to know where to begin. if you have actual information please, but your tirades will be deleted. And the grant had been administered by the founding director of NIDA who also happened to be the second White House Drug Czar-Robert DuPont. It just seems monstrous.". 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