Narconon: Encyclopedia II - Narconon - History

Narconon - History

Narconon was originally established in 1966 as a set of Scientology courses delivered to drug abusers; the name referred not to an organization but to the course. Its creator was William Benitez, at the time an inmate at Arizona State Prison serving time for narcotics offenses. His work was supported by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, and in 1972 Hubbard sponsored the incorporation of Narconon as an organization. It was co-founded by Benitez and two Scientologists, Henning Heldt and Arthur Maren, high-ranking members of the Church's Guardian's Office.

In these early days, Narconon and the Church of Scientology were very closely - and openly - linked. Narconon used unaltered Scientology materials in its courses, and Church of Scientology executives were directly involved in the management of the organization. However, this caused problems for Narconon during the 1970s. The organization promoted its services to a variety of jurisdictions in the United States, but repeatedly found itself in trouble when the Scientology link was raised by the media. Apart from the Church of Scientology having an image problem at the time, it raised serious legal questions about the constitutional appropriateness of government bodies sponsoring a religiously-based methodology (see Lemon v. Kurtzman).

Narconon developed its own course materials in response to these concerns. These have evolved through several iterations to produce Narconon's current "New Life Program," which is based closely on several Scientology courses.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki