Transcribed by Batchild (Sue M.) Converted to HTML by Batchild (Sue M.)

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BERNIE WARD: Good evening, I hope you go to the website at kgo.com. This is a story from the San Francisco Chronicle, and if I were a parent in the San Francisco public schools, I would be so beyond outraged.

BERNIE WARD (reading from article) "An anti-drug program with ties to the Church of Scientology will be barred from San Francisco classrooms because of concerns about its scientific accuracy, city schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman said. Ackerman's decision followed a review of the Narconon Drug Prevention & Education Program by school health officials, who found that some of its teachings were not '100 percent accurate.'"

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "'We are going to withhold the opportunity for Narconon to be in our schools,' Ackerman said."

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "However, she asked for an outside scientific appraisal of Narconon and said she could reverse her decision if they got the thumbs-up."

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "At least four other school districts, including L. A. Unified, already have expelled Narconon."

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "The anti-drug program has been active in at least 34 other California school districts, and state schools chief Jack O'Connell ordered his own evaluation, due in October."

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "Ackerman said her concern was raised after The Chronicle revealed in June that Narconon's classroom lectures reflected Scientology's beliefs about drugs and anatomy -- such as the idea that drug residues remain indefinitely in body fat and cause recurring flashbacks and drug cravings."

BERNIE WARD: This is what they were teaching. They were teaching the kids that if you smoke dope, for example, the drugs remain forever in your body and they can get you to be high and induce flashbacks again. I'm not kidding!

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "In addition to barring Narconon, Ackerman said San Francisco schools will implement a stricter policy forbidding outsiders from teaching children until their curriculum has been reviewed."

BERNIE WARD: Please--please explain to me how on God's green earth these people were teaching drug education and nobody in the San Francisco Unified school district has ever seen the curriculum?! They wonder why people want to abolish the public schools and then they see this kind of el-crappay going on! Isn't it nice of the superintendent of San Francisco schools to announce now "We're gonna check on the curriculum of people that are brought in to teach our kids".

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "'After investigating Narconon, I discovered that we don't have a process for reviewing curriculum from outside vendors,'"

BERNIE WARD: This is the stupidest thing I ever heard! These people are coming in to teach kids and you have no idea what they're teaching? Are you crazy?

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "Narconon officials have been adamant all along that the program's science is sound."

BERNIE WARD: Yeah, because there's a lot of sound science that says if you take drugs, they stay in your body indefinitely, and you ooze colored ooze, and that's why you need to have Scientology's E-machine because they'll teach you how to get rid of all that drug stuff that's in you indefinitely. That's how stupid Scientology is!

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "Narconon's lecturers and administrators are members of the Church of Scientology."

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "Trish Bascom, the district's health program director, said she recommended that Ackerman bar Narconon because some material 'did not ring 100 percent accurate'".

BERNIE WARD: Now, here's my favorite part--Narconon has been doing this since 1991. Since 1991, they've been doing drug lectures in San Francisco public schools and no one had ever--no one had ever checked to see what they were teaching. Since 1991!

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "The Chronicle found that Narconon introduced students to some beliefs and methods of Scientology without their knowledge."

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "The stories reported that Narconon's instruction rests, in part, on church beliefs that drug residues remain indefinitely in body fat, causing people to experience repeated drug flashbacks and cravings. Some teachers also reported Narconon taught their students that drug residues can be sweated out in saunas and that colored ooze is produced when drugs exit the body."

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "Five addiction specialists told The Chronicle they knew of no medical evidence to support the idea that drugs stay in fat for more a few weeks or that drugs exit via sauna or produce a colored ooze."

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "The revised curriculum no longer states that drugs in fat cells 'can stay there for years' triggering cravings. The district called that misleading."

BERNIE WARD: Misleading? It's absolutely completely, utterly, eff-ing nuts!

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "The curriculum now says that drugs 'are stored in various tissues for varying lengths of time.'"

BERNIE WARD: What?! Um--now listen to this! These guys want to teach in the schools so what does the head of it say?

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "Nevertheless, in a cover letter accompanying the new curriculum, Narconon's director of program development, Sue Birkenshaw,"

BERNIE WARD: _____ pish posh of Scientology--

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "repeated Narconon's original stance that drugs remain in the body's tissues indefinitely."

BERNIE WARD: Even though they have absolutely no scientific evidence to back that up. Listen to this, I love this, this is Scientology at its best:

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "'Not all members of the professional community are yet aware of this fact,'"

BERNIE WARD: Excuse me--so the Scientologists--who, of course, are not scientists--they know that this ooze comes out and they know that drugs remain in your fatty tissue forever. The scientific community, National Institute of Science, um, major universities and so forth, they're just not aware of this fact yet. I guess Scientology hasn't shared it with them.

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "Also gone from the curriculum is Narconon's claim that 'alcohol is made of dead, rotted food.'"

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "Some of the more obvious linguistic overlaps between Narconon and the Church of Scientology also are gone. The old curriculum directed the lecturer to have students perform 'a communication drill' and 'word clear' and to explain their 'reality'--all common Scientology terms.

BERNIE WARD (reading from article): "Nor does the revised curriculum still direct the Narconon speaker to lead students in thanking L. Ron Hubbard, who founded the Church of Scientology."

BERNIE WARD: Do you understand that since 1991 these people have been in San Francisco public classrooms and over the nation, over 1.7 million children they taught in which they told that drugs stay in your system forever, that if you go into a sauna it will, it will get rid of those drugs through some kind of a colored ooze. That alcohol is made of dead, rotting food. That--that you have to thank L. Ron Hubbard for us being here and so forth. And nobody since 1991 thought to check to see if the kids were being fed a whole bunch of el-crappay from an absolutely cult, jerk, crazy religion that snuck in and nobody checked. Unbelievable! And they're--they're actually considering letting them come back in! Despite the fact that they told the district, "Well, you know, a lot of these scientists in the country just aren't aware of what we bel--of what we know." Excuse me--excuse me?

Now of course you know about Scientology, don't you? L. Ron Hubbard was looking for a hobby so he decided that they weren't buying his books any more so he invented a religion. And in this religion, um, you're born into the world but then you have all of these impurities and they'll help you get rid of the impurities using an E-meter which you have to buy from them, and they'll teach you the exercises which you have to buy from them, and then they'll evaluate you which you have to buy from them, and then if you pass the first level, you go to the second level in which you have to buy more from them, and then if you get to the third level, you have to buy more from them and get more sophisticated E-meters, and then they teach you all this wonderful scientific stuff like the drugs stay in your system forever, they cause flashbacks, but we, the Scientologists, will help you rid yourself of all of those impurities, and so forth. But you have to pay for them, of course.

So since 1991, this kind of crapola has been fed to kids in the San Francisco school district--I don't know if it was in any other school districts from the Bay Area. And nobody thought to check to see what it was they were teaching. Had the Chronicle not reported what it reported, they'd still be doing what they were doing today. How about that! 808-0810 is the number--should they be allowed back? You heard Ackerman say, "Well, if they revise their curriculum"--why would you let them back in ever? Looking at what they told the kids, looking at the--at the absolutely nutso stuff that they were saying, why would you ever let them back into a classroom? Now, I gotta tell you, that's one of the reasons why people look, for example, at San Francisco and go "I wouldn't send my kids to a San Francisco public school if my life depended on it!" Look at this! These guys are in the classroom telling these kids to thank L. Ron Hubbard and nobody in the district even knows what they're doing! 808-0810.

[changes subject]

BERNIE WARD: Should this Narconon program be allowed back into public schools? Whether they revised the curriculum, should they be allowed back in, given what they were feeding students in the past? And should they be allowed in the schools with the direct connection--with their direct connection with Scientology and the fact that their administrators and teachers are all from Scientology? And that what they were having children doing had all the vestiges of Scientology? 808-0810 is the number to call if you would like to join in.

[changes subject]

BERNIE WARD: 28 minutes after the hour of 12 on KGO. Mary in San Francisco, welcome to KGO and Bernie Ward. Mary?

MARY: Hello?

BERNIE WARD: Hello.

MARY: Hi, Bernie.

BERNIE WARD: How are you?

MARY: I'm good, how are you?

BERNIE WARD: I'm doing actually very well.

MARY: Good. Um, I was just listening to your program and, um, in terms of--I'm not a Scientologist by any major, but I am in the health professional care industry and, um, there are some, some drugs that actually do stay in your system. Um, it's if there's a lot of fat in the body, they--some of these drugs are stored in fat.

BERNIE WARD: Indefinitely.

MARY: No, not indefinitely.

BERNIE WARD: Well, that's what Scientology says, indefinitely.

MARY: Well, that I'm not taking issue with, but--

BERNIE WARD: And have you ever seen--

MARY: There are lots of drugs that are metabolized at a slower late--rate, excuse me--because of fat in the body.

BERNIE WARD: Well, I don't--I don't dispute that; they stay in for a certain period of time, but in fact, um, the vast majority of drugs clear your body within a period of time. They do not stay indefinitely imbedded. And which of the drugs causes you flashbacks?

MARY: Well, I'm not sure. I--I can't comment to--to the drugs that are going to cause flashbacks--

BERNIE WARD: Because that's the other thing; these drugs that stay in your--

MARY: That's, that's not what I'm--

BERNIE WARD: These drugs that stay into your fatty tissue indefinitely also cause drug flashbacks.

MARY: Well, that I'm--I'm really not--

BERNIE WARD: Have you ever been in a sauna with anybody where you saw the drugs coming out in some form of colored ooze?

MARY: Well, no, and that's not what I'm commenting on.

BERNIE WARD: Okay, well, I don't disagree. Of course, drugs are gonna go into your tissues--

MARY: I'm just saying that there are some drugs that are administered that there's--there's an awareness in terms of body fat.

BERNIE WARD: Which of those drugs are drugs that kids would use recreationally?

MARY: Well, I'm not talking--I, I don't know, I mean, as far as recreationally.

BERNIE WARD: Well, that's what this is; this is a drug program--

MARY: --are you talking about--

BERNIE WARD: This is a drug program to educate children about what, you know, don't use drugs and they're gonna be, you're talking about the drugs that kids use recreational, so which of those, in your experience, are you talking about that, that stay so long in the system?

MARY: Well, I--again, I'm not--I'm not talking about the recreational use of drugs, um, but I'm talking about drugs that are administered, um, for a purpose of, um, you know, pharmacology to, to, for a certain purpose, um, that--that fat in the body does make a difference.

BERNIE WARD: They didn't say it makes a difference, they say it stays in the fat indefinitely. Do you know any drug that stays in the body indefinitely?

MARY: Um, no, I don't know any drug--

BERNIE WARD: Okay--

MARY: --that stays in the body indefinitely.

BERNIE WARD: So they're really talking--

MARY: --I really--

BERNIE WARD: They're really talking a bunch of el-crappay. Because there isn't. And what I love about these Scientologists is when you finally push them on it, they'll say, "Well, the other scientists just aren't aware of what we know." Don't you love that? So don't you smoke that there marijuana cuz it's gonna stay in your body forever! Forever! Well, no, it does, you means you don't ever have to buy it again! You take your first hit and you've got marijuana in your body forever! And you keep getting high! I mean, this is the greatest news--can you imagine telling kids this in a classroom? If you just use the drugs once, they stay in your body, you go back and get high again and you don't have to spend any more money! Yeah! That would sure make me not want to use 'em! These are the methods that they were teaching these kids in the classroom. If you use these drugs, that cocaine, you know, you get that in your system, it stays forever and you're gonna have flashbacks and, and you're gonna get high again! "Do I have to pay for it again?" No! "I love this!" Huh?! That's what they were teaching them! And the idiots who run the San Francisco public school system since 1991 never asked anybody what they were teaching. I mean, you gotta love it! That would mean Kim McAlister (sp?) would never have to buy another drug!

KIM: Nice--

BERNIE WARD: (laughs)

KIM: I always get pulled in at the end of some crazy, funky tie-ins.

BERNIE WARD: See, now we understand that she's having flashbacks a lot. I didn't know it before but I understand it now.

KIM: Flashbacks to the Bernie Ward nightmare.

BERNIE WARD: Oh, my God, if I stay in your system indefinitely, that's really sick!

KIM: Okay, that's more--

BERNIE WARD: Now remember, I'm not here, I can't stay in your system because I'm not here.

KIM: You're not?

BERNIE WARD: No, I'm a hundred yards away.

KIM: Where are you?

BERNIE WARD: I'm on the watery border of KGO

KIM: Bernie, come back!

BERNIE WARD: No, well, I'm--you know--

KIM: Where are you going?

BERNIE WARD: I'm just trying, you know, I'm just trying--I'm just trying to be indefinitely in your system forever.

KIM: Oh, well we've got another half hour of the Bernie Ward program so you are--

BERNIE WARD: Honest to God?

KIM: --mainstream drug until about 1 a.m.

BERNIE WARD: Well, I'm waiting for a flashback! (laughs)

[changes subject]

BERNIE WARD: 808-0810 is the number to call. Mike in Big Sur, welcome to KGO with Bernie Ward.

MIKE: Bernie, uh, what an honor to be on the phone with you. I listen to you nightly and have for years now. I've never called you, uh, but I'm calling you now because I actually have information about this whole detox Narconon thing.

BERNIE WARD: Okay.

MIKE: Uh, I, in--a little history here. In the late '70s, I went to high school in Los Angeles. My first busboy job in a restaurant was owned--the restaurant was owned by one of the members of the Medellin Cartel. I was doing cocaine in high school, um, pot like crazy, um, graduated at age 18, decided to leave and try to gain wisdom and travel around the world, went to India--

BERNIE WARD: Okay, well, we gotta get to the--

MIKE: Okay--

BERNIE WARD: --cut to the chase here.

MIKE: I traveled around and I, I--two years later, I came back, I felt I still had those drugs in my system.

BERNIE WARD: But you didn't.

MIKE: Well, I--I didn't know.

BERNIE WARD: But you didn't.

MIKE: Well, here's what happened. I actually read an ad in the LA Weekly about that detox program, and I paid 900 bucks and the detox program--this was the first time that program, the Narconon drug detoxifying program, was offered to the public, not by way of Scientology--although it turned out the place was owned by Scientologists. This was the first time they offered it to the public. I paid 900 bucks. I did it, and it was incredible! It was so incredible that I actually got a job there to learn how to do it. And I, uh--

BERNIE WARD: Well, what you were learning how to do was psychological because there wasn't anything in your body at that point.

MIKE: Well, I--I differ with you. I reeked--I had not smoked marijuana in three years and I reeked like strong sensimilla bud.

BERNIE WARD: Well, you can--you can disagree with me but now you're gonna have to show me the scientific evidence that says--

MIKE: Okay, Bernie--

BERNIE WARD: That it lasts indefinitely.

MIKE: Well, let me tell you, I--I reeked like sensimilla--

BERNIE WARD: Well, you,--I, I reek, too--

MIKE: --bud marijuana--

BERNIE WARD: --but I, I can take a shower and cure that. The fact of the matter is you didn't have any marijuana in your system three years later.

MIKE: Well, all I know--

BERNIE WARD: --that's the fact--

MIKE: --I smelled like pot.

BERNIE WARD: Well, I don't know what you smelled like, I can't help that.

MIKE: Okay, well--

BERNIE WARD: The bottom line is--the bottom line is you didn't have any marijuana in your system three years after you smoked it.

MIKE: Well--

BERNIE WARD: And there--

MIKE: Maybe you're right, I don't know--

BERNIE WARD: And, well, I--there is no--

MIKE: --I don't know--

BERNIE WARD: --there is no scientific evidence, with all the tests that have been done on THC, et cetera, particularly with all the testing that's been done on medical marijuana and what it does to the body--

MIKE: Right-

BERNIE WARD: And there is not a single ounce--there's not a page, there's not a line, there's not a comma, there's not a period that says it lasts in your body indefinitely.

MIKE: Okay, and--and I'm willing to accept that. But, but why, when I got a job there--and I began--I was basically the person in between the doctor who delivered the program to these people going through the sauna. And it's all based around nia--niacin therapy.

BERNIE WARD: And you saw the green ooze coming out.

MIKE: No, no, there is no green ooze.

BERNIE WARD: That's what Narconon taught.

MIKE: Well, they're wrong, and I, and they're misguided, and I agree with that. But, but, the reason I'm calling is because I actually--I think it's a very, very powerful, uh, technology that Scientology somehow came across.

BERNIE WARD: It's not a powerful technology, it's a bunch of--

MIKE: I saw--

BERNIE WARD: It's a con--

MIKE: I saw--Bernie, I saw people--

BERNIE WARD: You saw people like yourself--

MIKE: --in 15 years

BERNIE WARD: Right, you saw people like yourself who had psychological problems and who were told that that was linked to drugs that they had taken years ago--

MIKE: No, no, no--

BERNIE WARD: This is the typical Scientology rap and you had imperfections and if you just got that E-meter and if you could just do clearing exercises--

MIKE: (laughing) Oh, no, Bernie--

BERNIE WARD: --you know, and so forth. The fact is--

MIKE: --I know where you're coming from, I do.

BERNIE WARD: The fact is that none of them--

MIKE: --you don't understand--Bernie, this was a public place. They weren't trying to lay Scientology on people. That's what's interesting about this--

BERNIE WARD: I don't care whether they were or not. There was nobody who 15 years after using a drug still had it in their system.

MIKE: Well, I--

BERNIE WARD: --so therefore you have to ask yourself the question--

MIKE: --tripping on LSD at times in the sauna for no reason.

BERNIE WARD: Because they were told by this group that they still had it in them.

MIKE: Um--

BERNIE WARD: Correct?

MIKE: Well, I--I guess--

BERNIE WARD: Is that not correct? Were they not--when they came to this program, were they not told that the drugs that they had taken a long ago were still there and we had to get, get them out of you? We had to detoxify your body? Were they not told that?

MIKE: Well--okay, the way they word it is that when you're in the sauna--and if you want to get into it, I can explain to you why they say this happened--you do, um--it's possible that you can experience things as they re-enter the bloodstream--

BERNIE WARD: There you go. Thank you very much. There's not a--

MIKE: I don't know--

BERNIE WARD: There's not a--there's not a--there's not an ounce of scientific--not an ounce of scientific, uh, literature to support that, and you're telling people who are in need of some sort of psychological help that they've got--one of the reasons why they're having problems is because they still have all these toxins in their body and if you'll just follow our program, we can detoxify you.

MIKE: Well, well--Bernie, I agree with you they should not be telling high school students--

BERNIE WARD: They shouldn't be telling anybody this!

MIKE: Well--

BERNIE WARDS: It's a bunch of, it's--

MIKE: --people who came to this place to do the program.

BERNIE WARD: I don't care. It's a bunch of bunkum. It's got no basis in fact. It's, it's--it's taking advantage of people who need psychological help and this is their answer to it. And the--the fact that these people were in the San Francisco school system teaching kids since 1991 and no one had checked to see who they were, who was behind them, what they were teaching and whether or not it had any scientific basis whatsoever is a scandal; it is a crime. And it's the reason why, at least in San Francisco, people look at the public school system and say, "I wouldn't send my kids to the public schools if my life depended on it." 12:47, KGO news talk 810 time it is, Bernie Ward Program.

[commercial break, then some other discussion about the Presidential race]

BERNIE WARD: Mark in San Jose, welcome to KGO with Bernie Ward.

MARK: Hi, Bernie, how are you doing tonight?

BERNIE WARD: I'm good.

MARK: Um, a couple of issues for me; I should preface this by saying that I'm an atheist. And I was a drug user throughout the 70s and 80s. And due to an arrest, I was forced to go through, um, the Narconon type of program. So immediately you can figure out my problem with the whole thing was the reference to God and Jesus and all these sort of things with religious connotations. So that was my big problem with any of these types of programs. Did you recently, uh, see that thing that they had--it might have been a re-broadcast on, um, 60 Minutes where they were talking about these programs and how bogus they are?

BERNIE WARD: I know there was a study that showed that the DARE program doesn't do anything.

MARK: Yeah--

BERNIE WARD: That's been in schools forever and it doesn't--

MARK: AA, Alcoholics Anonymous and all these other programs that are based on these 12-step things do, like, zero. If--in other words, if you went, if you went on a program on your own versus these programs, the results are about 5%--

BERNIE WARD: Uh, you've been watching--

MARK: --on your own versus 5%, you can succeed if, if you follow their whole--

BERNIE WARD: You've been watching Penn and Teller.

MARK: Was that what--was that what it was?

BERNIE WARD: That was Penn and Teller, yeah.

MARK: You're right, okay, okay, good. So you're up to speed on that.

BERNIE WARD: I am, I am up to speed on that and I appreciate the call. Penn and Teller have a really interesting show on Showtime called, well, the initials would be B.S. And they did a thing on alcohol, on A.A. saying that, you know, the bottom line is that not doing anything 5% of recovery and doing A.A. 5% of recovery, et cetera, you know. And therefore people should not be forced into A.A. programs because it's really religion and all that kind of stuff. 808-0810 is the number to call, 12:54. KGO News Talk 810 time it is the Bernie Ward Program.

[commercial break]

BERNIE WARD: KGO News Talk 810 time, it is the Bernie Ward Program. 808-0810 the number to call. Steve in Sonoma, welcome to KGO with Bernie Ward.

STEVE: Oh, thank you for taking my call, I appreciate it. Thanks, Bernie. Um, I, uh, I went through a six-month 12-step program that was in a hospital and, uh, I went to group therapy, I went to 12-step meetings and I will say this, that I was in such bad shape when I went in that I was ready to believe in anything. And I tried to do it. I was prescribed antidepressants for my severe episodes of depression. I was told I was probably bipolar. I was diagnosed by a Ph.D. as having manic tendencies, schizophrenic tendencies and all these different things. And I did my best. I took my pills, I went to my meetings, I went to my groups. And--

BERNIE WARD: They sent you to A.A. because you were bipolar?

STEVE: No, I was in a treatment facility that used both psychotherapy, or--that used psychotherapy, medication and, uh, A.A. meetings to restore a person fast.

BERNIE WARD: Well, they--none of the 12-step programs--12-step programs have nothing to do with bipolar disorders.

STEVE: No, I'm not suggesting that it does. All I'm saying is that I was in a medical facility, because you were talking about the medical community and kind of what they promote and that kind of a thing. And there are a couple of issues here. One is chemical dependency and the other is the depression that exists within the addictive system that people live in. The, you know, depression, uh, as a result of that, right, long periods of unethical behavior, stealing--

BERNIE WARD: Well, I understand that, but--

STEVE: _____

BERNIE WARD: --I understand that, but the claim that the drugs--

STEVE: --finish--

BERNIE WARD: --the claim that the drugs stay in your system indefinitely is patently false.

STEVE: I am not a scientist, and I wanted to say this. When I went, when I--

BERNIE WARD: Unfortunately, we'll have to take this up on another time because I don't have the time. 12:59

[END]

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