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Alexandre Dumas: Driven to desperation by their circumstances,
drug addicts and their families are perfect victims.
Predatory cults are present in Quebec
and they are actively recruiting addicts who are looking for way out.
This approach is both insidious and effective,
for what these cult-based detoxification treatments set out to do
is simply to replace a dependence on a drug
by a dependence on a guru.
It's logical!
Since the goal is a new lifestyle of sobriety,
why not adopt a new religion at the same time?
The Church of Scientology has learned this lesson well
and it founded Narconon,
a detoxification program that offers its treatments all over the world.
Eugene Berube: Narconon originates from the philosophy of L. Ron Hubbard,
who founded the Church of Scientology.
It's a pseudo-scientific thought system
and it follows the same pattern as many religions,
in the sense that you have fallen from a state of grace
because, in your body, you are intoxicated,
and we have the solution.
We will help you get rid of all those psychological and physical toxins
and you will regain a state of grace
and you will return to harmony with yourself
and with the forces of the invisible world.
Alexandre Dumas: Narconon was first established in Montreal in 1996.
It only had only about 15 places and demand was too high,
so Narconon Montreal moved to Trois-Rivieres near the end of 2001.
In Trois-Rivieres, the center can accommodate 125 persons.
A 3-month treatment program will cost you $23,000,
but you are told without any guarantee,
that the success rate exceeds 75%.
Jean-Marc Menard: Narconon is not certified by the Quebec Ministry of Health.
"Not certified" means there are no standards for the quality of service
and they can do more or less whatever they want
without any outside monitoring
to judge or evaluate the nature of the services provided.
Sylvain Fournier: Yes, it's true,
the program here is not subsidized by the government.
Contrary to other programs that are subsidezed,
people pay to come over and follow the program here.
I think this is beneficial
because we teach people to take responsibility for their past actions
and not to ask the community or the public to pay for their past errors.
Alexandre Dumas: The Narconon program is based on "purification",
a term that is very frequently used by followers of the Church of Scientology.
To become a Scientologist, a person must be "Clear".
This means that we must rid ourselves of all toxins that pollute our body
and all influences that pollute our mind.
Madeleine Genesse was persuaded to join the Church of Scientology
by a Scientologist friend.
To join the group, she underwent a "Purification Rundown"
similar to the methods used by Narconon for its treatment of drug addiction.
Madeleine Genesse: The Purification Rundown involved 5 to 6 hours a day in a sauna,
and massive doses of vitamins.
The most I ever took according to my calculations, was about 40 tablets.
There were 40 of them.
It all depended on what drugs or medication a person had taken,
on what could have accumulated,
doses were based on that.
Sylvain Fournier: Instead of giving people medication,
we offer a program that is 100% natural
and we give them an enormous amount of vitamins, minerals, calcium, magnesium.
We also have all kinds of exercises
to help people overcome any physical and mental discomfort during withdrawal.
Eugene Berube: Vitamins are natural, but so is arsenic and it can be lethal.
It was once a fad to have a medicine cabinet full of multicolored vitamin pills
and people were saying vitamins are natural,
but it's known today that vitamins can be toxic
and that taking megadoses, as recommended in their approach,
can cause serious problems.
Medically speaking, this approach has been severely criticized.
Madeleine Genesse: The only prerequisite that I remember for the Purification Rundown
was that we had to obtain a note from our doctor
saying that we were fit to take the Purification Rundown,
but I didn't know much about it.
so I couldn't really tell the doctor what the program was.
So I obtain a note from the doctor
without being able to tell him more than what I knew.
Sylvain Fournier: During withdrawal, we use vitamins A, B, C, and D.
We also have what we call "CalMag". It's sold in drug stores.
I think it's also called "CalMax". It's calcium mixed with magnesium.
We also give replenishment oils,
because sweating in a sauna removes toxins from the body,
but it also removes things we need.
We need oils, we need vitamins and minerals, iron and all that.
So, it's necessary to ... We rebalance the person's body.
Madeleine Genesse: If I had known what it was all about,
such massive doses of vitamins,
the many hours in a sauna,
I don't think I would have obtained my doctor's approval.
He knew me and had been following me for years.
I had already had thyroid gland problems
and I was treated with radioactive iodine.
I had also had liver problems.
So taking massive doses of vitamins would have been inadvisable for me.
Jean-Marc Menard: What is questionable is that there is no provision for any medical evaluation
and no provision for any medical intervention in what they say.
There is no detailed evaluation of the risks of withdrawal.
If a person withdraws from alcohol,
which is one of the most dangerous or anxiety-causing withdrawal processes,
and the person completely and suddenly stops consuming alcohol,
it's no use giving him all the vitamins in the world.
If we don't address the risks of withdrawal
associated with prolonged heavy alcohol consumption,
there are major health risks.
Sylvain Fournier: Here at Narconon, we have 85 very dedicated employees.
We have no psychologist, we have no psychiatrist, on site.
but we have 85 employees who are totally dedicated to saving lives
and they are constantly attentive.
Madeleine Genesse: When I was doing the Purification Rundown,
no one was monitoring us, no doctor, no psychologist.
There was no nurse to measure our blood pressure or check our pulse.
No, there was no monitoring as far as that's concerned.
Eugene Berube: The people who work at Narconon,
based on what I've seen, at least to my knowledge,
have no professional training,
neither in medicine nor in psychiatry or psychoanalysis.
They are people who adhere to a belief, to an ideology that is anti-scientific
and that looks upon people in a way that I find rather disconcerting.
For example, with regard to detoxification,
for heavy drug addicts who have taken hard drugs,
these people advocate radical cold turkey withdrawal.
Addiction specialists totally advise against this.
Madeleine Genesse: While I was on the Purification Rundown,
there were other persons with me in the sauna
and some had taken hard drugs and were addicts.
The addicts had reactions - withdrawal symptoms, of course.
I hadn't taken hard drugs, but some people had,
so there were fits of rage and bizarre reactions.
I was worried. I was always very much on edge
because you couldn't predict how they would behave.
Jean-Marc Menard: Many health problems can arise when people undergo intensive withdrawal.
There are major health risks and if people don't receive medical attention,
they can have problems and even die.
There are also major mental health risks.
A large portion of this clientèle has various disorders,
mental health issues that are chronic or very serious,
and they require specialized services tailored to their specific needs.
Of course, we know that an addict who is withdrawing cold turkey
experiences inner distress that is absolutely phenomenal.
Distress also means vulnerability.
So, personally, I wonder if Narconon is not simply an open door
to recruit people - vulnerable people - into a community,
namely the Church of Scientology.
Sylvain Fournier: People often confuse Narconon with the Church of Scientology.
They are not the same thing.
They are two completely separate things.
What we do here is help people resolve drug addiction problems.
There is no religious aspect to our program.
It is based on the writings of L. Ron Hubbard,
who happens also to be the founder of the Church of Scientology.
But he wasn't only that.
Here, we don't send people to the Church of Scientology.
We don't recruit people for the Church of Scientology.
We don't talk about the Church of Scientology
and they are two completely separate things.
They come from the same founder.
To say that Narconon is one thing and the Church of Scientology another
would be to lie.
In hindsight, the negative effect is even worse than I thought
because the massive doses of vitamins I took during the Purification Rundown
and afterward, as I was told to do
by the person in charge of the Purification Rundown,
were very harmful because I already had liver and thyroid gland problems.
So there were constant imbalances.
Today I have cancer, which has metastasized,
and the prognosis is terminal.
I received the end-of-life prognosis at the same time as the cancer diagnosis.
There's nothing that can be done about it.
There's no possible operation.
If what I'm telling you about what happened can help inform others,
it will at least be worth that.
Madeleine Genesse died in May 2008.