Narconon is a Scientology front group. It offers purported drug rehabilitation treatment and anti-drug lectures. Both programmes promote the ideology of L. Ron Hubbard; neither is considered valid by mainstream science or medicine.
Narconon is headquartered in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. It operates several dozen residential centers worldwide, chiefly in the United States and Western Europe. Narconon is controlled by ABLE, a Scientology corporation, to which Narconon pays 10% of its gross revenue.
The program has garnered considerable controversy as a result of its origins in Scientology and its methods: its drug rehabilitation treatment has been described as "medically unsafe", "quackery" and "medical fraud", while academic and medical experts have dismissed its educational programme as containing "factual errors in basic concepts such as physical and mental effects, addiction and even spelling".
In turn, Narconon has claimed that mainstream medicine is "biased" against it, and that "people who endorse so-called controlled drug use cannot be trusted to review a program advocating totally drug-free living." Narconon has said that criticism of its programmes is "bigoted", and that its critics are "in favor of drug abuse ... they are either using drugs or selling drugs", while Scientology head David Miscavige attributes criticism to Scientology's "war" with "the mental health field".
L. Ron Hubbard's writings, which underly the program, state that drugs and their metabolites are stored in the body's fatty tissues, causing the addict's cravings when partially released later on, and can be flushed out through a regimen comprising elements such as exercise, sauna and intake of high doses of vitamins. This hypothesis is contradicted by experimental evidence, and is not accepted by mainstream medicine or education. Narconon's claimed 80% success rate has been described by drug experts as "simply untrue".
Celebrity supporter Tom Cruise asserts that Narconon is "the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world", adding "It's a statistically proven fact that there is only one successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. Period." He ascribes criticism of Narconon to religious bigotry, saying "A minority wants to hate - okay. For me, it's connected with intolerance". However, there exist no independently recognized studies which confirm the efficacy of the Narconon program.
Read more about Narconon: Narconon and Scientology, Drug Rehabilitation Programme, Spin-offs and Related Groups