My letter to the Chicago Sun Times regarding a mention of Narconon in their paper:

~~~~

Dear Ellie-

In your recent article about drug abuse you recommended a website called Narconon.org

http://www.suntimes.com/output/ellie/cst-ftr-ellie0404.html

I know it is common for people to recommend this site because Google and other search engines prominently feature Narconon since the "Church" of Scientology purchased thousands of domain names related to drug abuse that point to Narconon so that Narconon would be prominently featured.

Many people are confused by Narconon and believe that it is somehow related to the well-respected 12-step programs Alcoholics Anononymous (AA), Al-Anon, Gambler's Anonymous, and Narcotics Anonymous (NA). However Narconon is not the same as Narcotics Anonymous. Narconon is a front group for the "Church" of Scientology. It does not hold meetings, but rather it charges people $20,000 to provide them with the untested and dangerous in-house treatments prescribed by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. They chose the name "Narconon" to confuse people into thinking they were related to the 12-step programs with similar names.

These Narconon treatments include extended stays in a sauna, dangerous levels of niacin supplements, and the ingestion of large quantities of vegetable oil. These treatments have been analyzed by Chris Owen and published on a web page hosted by Dr. David Touretzky at the web site "Narconon Exposed". You can read more about it at: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Narconon/

Narconon charges large sums of money for its treatments and a large share of this money is transferred "up-lines" to pay for the use of Scientology trademarks and copyrighted works as part of what Time Magazine has referred to as "A Global Scam". The current treatment program (which is proven ineffective) costs over $20,000.

In the future I would ask that you refer people read the page by The American Council for Drug Education at http://www.acde.org/ (or any of a variety of other such programs) if they want to find out more about drugs. ACDE has a page about signs of drug abuse at

http://www.acde.org/parent/signs.htm

For drug treatment, their are obviously lots of options, but Narcotics Anonymous is a very successful program based on the 12-step programs of A.A. People can learn more about NA by looking in the phone book or visiting

http://www.NA.org

Thanks for your time and consideration,

AJ Simkatu
Treasurer of ARSCC (wdne)
CFO of the ARSCC International Trust.

<p><hr><p> Subject: Re: My letter to the Chicago Sun Times "Ask Ellie" regarding a mention of Narconon in their paper
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
From: dst@cs.cmu.edu (Dave Touretzky)
Message-ID: <4433dee5$1@news2.lightlink.com>
Date: 5 Apr 2006 11:14:45 -0400

That's a terrific letter. It should put the kibosh on any more free publicity for the Narconon scam.

But for future reference, don't give people long unwieldy URLs like http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Narconon. Just give them:

http://Narconon-Exposed.org

and

http://Stop-Narconon.org

Catchy names, huh?

-- Dave Touretzky: "This is your brain on Scientology."
http://PerkinsTragedy.org

<p><hr><p> Subject: Re: My letter to the Chicago Sun Times "Ask Ellie" regarding a mention of Narconon in their paper
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
From: dst@cs.cmu.edu (Dave Touretzky)
Message-ID: <44344dc4$1@news2.lightlink.com>
Date: 5 Apr 2006 19:07:48 -0400

In article <1144277297.718277.149290@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com>, Simkatu <Simkatu@gmail.com> wrote: >
>I received a response from the researcher for "Dear Ellie", who
>confirmed that the Narconon plug was an error on their part and she
>assured me it wouldn't happen again.

Woohoo!!!!! Another big win for Simkatu!

I like the way this game is played. Our side influences radio, televsion, and newspaper coverage -- not to mention national magazines. Their side is limited to making idiotic posts to ARS.

Now who's going to win this battle?

-- Dave Touretzky: "Tom Cruise, poster boy for mental illness."
http://PerkinsTragedy.org