SAN FRANCISCO, June 9 (UPI) -- A widely used U.S. school anti-drug course includes all Scientology and Dianetics Handbook basics, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday.
Scientology correspondence obtained by the Chronicle on the free anti-drug program called Narconon Drug Prevention and Education said it teaches concepts directly taken from the Church of Scientology, including some medical theories many addiction experts describe as "irresponsible."
The Chronicle said Narconon's anti-drug instruction rests on key church concepts, such as the body stores all kinds of toxins indefinitely in fat that creates havoc on the mind until "sweated out."
Narconon's anti-drug prevention lectures have reached 1.7 million U.S. schoolchildren, and Narconon officials insist it is secular, with a firewall existing between it and the Church of Scientology.
"It's our job to keep them separate," said Clark Carr, president of Narconon International. "We work full time to do this. If we went into the school district as Scientology, with the separation of church and state, it wasn't going to work. It would be as if someone said, 'I have some things in the Bible I think would be very helpful.' No, thank you. It's corporately and financially separate, and that's appropriate."
