--Reverend Terence E. Tanner, London, 1979
| "Addicts are the scapegoat of our age." --Reverend Terence E. Tanner, London, 1979 |
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SAVING OUR CHILDREN FROM DRUG TREATMENT ABUSE Professor Emeritus, American University Conference Chair
Last fall, I published an article on my web page titled MORAL INTEGRITY AND PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTEES: The Straight Skinny in which I mention a chance encounter I had years ago in Australia with our then Ambassador to Australia, Melvin Sembler, and his wife, Betty. This occurred at a major international drug conference, attended by leading experts from around the world. Ambassador Sembler was the key speaker at a huge banquet. During the course of his talk, he modestly mentioned that he had a little knowledge about the drug field, having founded a novel juvenile drug rehabilitation in America called Straight, Inc. Actually I was quite familiar with Straight having investigated it extensivley and having devoted an entire chapter of one of my books to the abuses of Straight. In my view -- and that of many other experts -- Straight was a symbol of the destructive ignorance that lay at the heart of our entire approach to drug treatment and control. My wife, Marj, and I were stunned, shocked beyond belief to hear our esteemed ambassador mislead the international audience into believing that one of the horrors of the American drug war was a humane model for the world. We whispered to each other in disbelieving tones which drew puzzled, quiet questions from our distinguished table mates -- what are you so upset about, etc? We quietly responded and then the Dutch drug czar whispered that, oh yes, he knew about it -- "Hitler jugend!" Yes, shades of Hitler Youth as the model for the treatment of America's children. Over the intervening years, I did my best to help stop the abuses of Straight and its descendants and relatives. My assumption was that it was pretty much moribund. I have been stunned and shocked again to learn that it and its descendants are still very much alive. My brief internet article was read by members of an internet self-help group known loosely as Straight Survivors who contacted me. After all those years I was saddened to learn that although the original Straight, Inc. may have closed in 1993, there are a number of programs still in existence today which continue to use the Straight methodology. Wes Fager, the father of one of those survivors, has written an on-line book on the Straights called A Clockwork Straight. From this group I was further dismayed to learn that many other programs in recent years have been accused of child abuse while claiming to treat kids for alcohol and drug abuse, eating problems, sex addiction, and a myriad of other alleged disorders. As a consequence of my corresponding with these Straight survivors and their families on the internet, I have met with some of them and have joined with them in an effort to expose juvenile and youth treatment programs of all sorts which use destructive or at least questionable treatment tactics. As a means of beginning to organize our efforts, we are having a conference in July in the greater Washington, DC area to discuss outstanding issues involving these programs to decide what positive actions may be taken to deal with their abuses, including the collection of sworn affidavits from victims and their families. These affidavits may well be delivered to lawyers for consideration of a variety of law suits in those cases where the evidence clearly warrants such action.
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