History of Narconon

On August 2, 1965, William Benitez, an inmate at Arizona State Prison jumped down from his double bunk in the old cellblock where he was housed and made the following notation on his wall calendar: “Decision to set up Narcotic Foundation.” He also circled the 18th of the same month, his target date to approach prison officials to request permission to set up a drug rehabilitation programme inside the prison walls.

Officials denied permission for the following six months. Mr. Benitez’s request to start a programme consisting of twenty convicted drug addicts caused concern to officials who feared such a programme might pose a security problem (such programmes were rare in prisons during that decade). Officials had little reason to believe that the request of a habitual drug addict and repeatedly convicted felon would result in the worlds biggest rehabilitation programme.

Mr. Benitez persisted and finally assured officials the programme was needed and would not pose a threat to the safe and orderly operation of the prison. After being allowed to start the programme on a trial basis, he founded the NARCONON programme (NARCOtics-NONe) on February 19, 1966.

Today, the Narconon programme has spread from that one programme in Arizona State Prison to include community programmes in many states and countries such as Denmark, Italy, Holland, Germany, France, Sweden, Spain, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Colombia, Switzerland, New Zealand, South Africa, Ghana, the United Kingdom, Australia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Argentina and Brazil.

In the late 1970’s the then President of Narconon, John Duff, realised the need for effective drug education and along with others developed the Truth About Drugs format. Mr Duff assembled his data primarily from L. Ron Hubbard’s researches in the field and augmented this with established physiological facts about narcotics and alcohol.