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State Mental Health And Substance Abuse Board To Consider Narconon Certification At Today's Meeting
NEWKIRK, Nov. 8, 1990 - The Oklahoma Board of Mental Health meets at 9 am today at Western State Hospital to consider the certification of Narconon, the controversial drug treatment program at Chilocco Indian School north of Newkirk.
Narconon Wednesday morning asked the Oklahoma City District Court for an injunction to prevent the Board from discussing their certification at the meeting. At press time the results of that court action were unknown.
A charter bus-load of between 30 and 40 Newkirk citizens plan to leave this morning at 4 am to attend the meeting and express their opposition to certification of the facility, which has been operating since February. The bus was paid for by donations from Newkirk and area residents concerned about the unlicensed establishment.
Early last week, according to sources, a Blue Ribbon Panel of experts was to have visited the facility, but was denied access by Narconon officials. The panel was to have been headed by Jerrold Jaffe, a drug abuse and treatment expert with the federal government; Dr. L.J. West, professor of psychiatry at the University of California at Los Angeles; and David Dietch, who has served as chief executive of a large chain of drug abuse treatment centers in the U.S.
About the same time, Dennis Clarke, president of the Citizen's Commission on Human Rights appeared on a Ponca City television and radio station and contended that the leaders of the inspection team were prejudiced against both the Church of Scientology and Indians. In answer to a question, Clarke said his commission was founded by the Church of Scientology. Narconon is also an organization closely connected to Scientology, and uses treatment methods prescribed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
Last Thursday, Mental Health and Substance Abuse Department officials completed and released to Narconon it's recommendation that the facility not be certified.
"We are outraged," said Gary Smith, president of the Narconon center at Chilocco in an interview with the Saturday Oklahoman. Smith said that the recommendation was based on "biased, false, distorted information on Narconon."
Mental Health Department spokeswoman Rosemary Brown said the agency would not comment on Narconon's allegations of persecution. We were hoping that we would have an orderly process of discussion of this at the board meeting," she said. "We prefer not to discuss it outside that setting where everything is on the record and official."
Claims of a conspiracy within the state mental health department in handling of Narconon's certification application surfaced Monday afternoon. Representatives of Narconon said they discovered a predated, unsigned letter in the files of the mental health department notifying Narconon that the program's certification has been denied. "We have finally found our smoking gun," Smith said. "There definitely is a conspiracy here."
But mental health spokeswoman Rosemary Brown denied the accusation, and said that the letter was routinely prepared in anticipation that the board would follow the agency's staff recommendation that Narconon not receive state certification.
"There's nothing sinister here. It's simply a time saving measure to expedite the notification procedure," Brown said. If the board rejects the staff's recommendation and certifies Narconon, a new letter will be prepared, Brown said. The board concurs with staff recommendations "more times than not," she said in an interview with the Daily Oklahoman on Tuesday.
The staff recommendation was prompted, according to the Oklahoman story, by Narconon's failure to allow an independent review team to inspect the center's "non-traditional" treatment techniques at the center, Brown said.
Smith claimed in the same story that the team included "religious and racial bigots," who were predisposed to rule against the center. Brown said claims by nearby residents of harassment by Narconon employees, the center's failure to pay contractors and the absence of Narconon staff members at a state training seminar also contributed to the staff's negative recommendation, according to the Oklahoman story.
Smith claims the conspiracy involves "the department of mental health or someone in it."