Scientologists enlist police to push antidrugs drive in school

The Times have a short story about the links between the police and Narconon, the drug charity linked to the Church of Scientology:

POLICE officers across the country have been used by the Church of Scientology to promote its antidrugs campaign in schools.

Officers have been handing out booklets that praise the science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard, the church’s founder, and describe both prescription and illegal drugs as “poison”.

Scientologists say they are so trusted by the police that they have been asked to act as adult representatives for young people arrested on drugs offences.

Narconon are not a member of the Drug Education Forum.

The California Department of Education have evaluated the Narconon programme as delivered there and say:

NDAP [Narconon Drug Abuse Prevention Program] was evaluated for accuracy, developmental appropriateness, and teaching methods. Some drug-related information presented in the NDAP and supplementary resources provided to schools—although aligned with the Narconon drug rehabilitation methodology—does not reflect accurate, widely accepted medical and scientific evidence. Some information is misleading because it is overstated or does not distinguish between drug use and abuse. The NDAP elementary, middle, and high school presentation outlines are inadequately differentiated to the developmental characteristics and cognitive levels of student learners. Although the NDAP is ostensibly aligned with research-based practice, the actual presentation outlines, delivery scripts, and additional resources made available to schools are often inconsistent with these standards. NDAP presentations are lecture-oriented sessions that emphasize conveying information to students and provide limited opportunities for students to exchange ideas, interact with concepts, construct personally meaningful understanding, and practice skills. Some NDAP teaching methods may undermine the desired objectives of schools’ research-based drug prevention curricula: using ex-addicts to teach drug prevention in schools may tacitly reinforce students’ perceptions that drug use really isn’t risky and may also contradict efforts to teach students to critically evaluate health information and its sources. Because NDAP presenters are encouraged to be flexible and the presentation materials leave a variety of content and suggested activities with insufficient instructional direction, the standardization and fidelity of implementation may not be high. [more]

I’ve been told that Narconon are actively marketing themselves to schools, and they were the subject of a number of Parliamentary Questions at the turn of last year.

Filed under: drug education, police , Church of Scientology, Narconon