THE NARCOTIC FARM

[Ursus]

I was surprised to read on p. 103 that five separate "Houses" of Therapeutic Communities were fostered on the grounds of the Institution.(Exelsior, Numen, Ascension, YOUnity and Matrix) Of these, Matrix was the only coed house. The authors state that "there was no staff and little over site", and they (Matrix House) were allowed to recruit members from outside of the prison community (called squares). John Wildes a former heroin addict and one time inhabitant of the Institution was hired by the government to run this facility.

At what timepoint are we talking about here? 1950s? 60s? 70s? When were TCs first incorporated into the Narco Farm milieu?

The next paragraph goes on to detail the mixed reviews of those who remember Matrix House and that it was based on the Synanon Game.
 "The program centered on a confrontational style group therapy called The Game…The Game encouraged members to single out, attack and ridicule…"
The Game sometimes went on for hours at a time. Although physical violence or threats of violence were not allowed, few other boundaries were observed. Screaming, crying and hugging were embraced as therapeutic".

Did they specifically refer to Synanon? If so, can you please give us (or me!    ) a quote?

[Inculcated]

At what timepoint are we talking about here? 1950s? 60s? 70s? When were TCs first incorporated into the Narco Farm milieu?

The Authors are not specific about that.  No specific dates of the opening of each of the “Houses” or their closures have been given. At least to the point that I’ve read in the book ( thru chp. 6). The progression of the text and presentation of photographs seems to be following the timeline of all of the Institution at Lexington. P. 102 ends with noting that the Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act as having prompted other changes in the mid 1960’s, including civil commitment for drug treatment remand options. This follows reference to the introduction of millieu therapy to the approaches at Lexington in the 1950’s. The next specific Date is 1972, re: the allegations of torture at Matrix House, and the imprisonment of its’ director for firearms related violations. The photos and related captions on the pages immediately following this are also of the late 1950’s, throughout the 60’s and the early 1970’s.

Did they specifically refer to Synanon? If so, can you please give us (or me!  ) a quote?

Yes. I'm happy to do so.
“Patient directed rehabilitation, modelled after well publicized facilities such as Synanon and Daytop Village, became the main treatment in what was no longer a prison, but a federal corrections institute.” –The Narcotic Farm/The talking cure
“Today, Matrix House is remembered by some as a sincere attempt at a utopian community. Others see the group as a cult that debased its own members. The program centered on a confrontational style therapy called The Game, which was developed by the California-based therapeutic community Synanon.” –The Narcotic Farm/The talking cure

[Inculcated]

The New York Times May 26, 1935 NARCOTIC FARM FOR 1,400 OPENED
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DR. Cumming Dedicates It to Our 'Instinctive Demands' for Care of Afflicted.
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CENTRE COST $4,000,000
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Government Hopes to Rebuild Addicts at 11-Acre Place in Lexington, Ky.
_____________

LEXINGTON, Ky., May 25 (AP).--- Dr. Hugh S. Cumming, Surgeon General of the Federal Public Health Service, dedicated Lexington's newly completed Federal Narcotic Farm today to "instinctive demands" of the American people "that the sick and afflicted shall be set in the way of strength and hope."

Dr. Cumming described the $4,000,000 institution for the care of narcotic addicts as a centre of treatment, education, industry and rehabilitation.

The plant, with facilities to make it self-sustaining, covers eleven acres in the middle of a rich farm area of 1,100 acres in the bluegrass country. Construction has required three years. A companion institution is being erected at Fort Worth, Texas.

Segregation of narcotic addicts, Dr. Cumming said, bears a direct relationship to policies of law enforcement and the protection of United States communities. Recognition of the need for such specialization, he said, grew out of three centuries of evolution of public policies.

The lexington institution has facilities for 1,400 inmates. Four classes of narcotic addicts are to be received, those convicted of violating Federal laws, convicted persons who have completed their prison sentences, offenders on probation and voluntary patients.

The farm staff will number 350 employees, who will receive an annual payroll of about $500,000. Upkeep of the farm is estimated at $750,000 a year.

The United States, Dr. Cumming said, has led the world in its appreciation of the dangers of the abusive uses of narcotics. He cited an act of 1887 prohibiting the importation of non-medical opium, and the initiative of this country in obtaining international agreements to control narcotics manufacture and traffic.

[Joel]

Edited: Wednesday, October 06, 2010

[Anonymous]

Fornits mission: Plant more narcotic farms

Fixed. :rasta:

[Anonymous]

Why am I remembering John Stallone's name.....HMMMMMMMMM...Daytop ?.....Marathon House ?....Man this is bugging me....   This name is resonating in my bones from a remote time.
    Inculcated, was he in NYC.... in the early 70's.... w/ Daytop or Marathon house??? or in Connecticut/ Rhode Island???
     I wonder if he came back for awhile to work and/or as a consultant from California, I don't know right now, but I will
       soon.  Sorry for such a informal address to a question my dear Gentleman, Inculcate. My manners are slipping.  lol

[Inculcated]

http://www.itvs.org/pressroom/press_det ... essId=6621
I wouldn’t know anything that hasn’t been published about him. I'm pretty sure he's with Amity now (also a Synanon spawn).
Let us know if it comes to you.
Interestingly, HEAL has mention of a John Stallone working with CEDU in the early 70’s. http://www.heal-online.org/cedu.htm
I’m not sure if that’s the same individual. Others would know for certain.

[Ursus]

From one of the webpages for "The Narcotic Farm - the film," under the heading of "the characters - the patients":

-------------- • -------------- • --------------

JOHN STALLONE



John Stallone grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and was addicted to heroin as a teenager in the 1950s. He arrived [at] Lexington – in lieu of being sent to Rikers Island – in 1959. Like Bernie Kolb, he would join "Synanon," which he also credits with his recovery. Today he counsels incarcerated drug addicts in California.

[Ursus]

That short blurb standing in for Stallone's bio (previous post) is flushed out a tiny bit more on the webpage for The Independent Television Service press release for the film:

John Stallone grew up in Brooklyn in the 1940s. He dabbled with heroin as a teenager and by the time he was 18 he was addicted to the drug and began committing crimes to support his habit. He arrived [at] Lexington – in lieu of being sent to Rikers Island – in 1959. For the next several years after his release he continued to use heroin, but kicked the habit after moving to California and joining the self-help group "Synanon," of which he was a member until the early 1980s. Today he counsels prisoners in California.[/list]

[Anonymous]

Thanks Ursus....Here is another name that I'm currently working on Joe Geranamo (I'm thinking spelled correctly, maybe not but close) Senior Director/or Director for Marathon House @ '73-'74; Middletown R.I./ had sleeping arrangements in Newport, R.I. @ house they leased for (men).
  Why am I recollecting and posting..... you folks would kno more then most.....(at least who I'm aware of).
  I am trying at 50yrs. old to put pieces together and have it establish a foundation for further cognition.  Thanks Folks...
 As always you to, Inculcate.......      Danny

[Ursus]

From Inculcated's above noted link to HEAL:

"I was Placed at CEDU Foundation In or about march 1973...I was only 15 at the time, and just lost my mother, so all of this was pretty scary, considering this was just the first day there.  I learned to adjust, to play the game. and prayed that I would not get in Michaels way.  he was very verbally abusive with me and it never got better.  I eventually somehow, figured out to ask for a different family head over time.  I finally got John Stallone, he was basically the closest  person there with some sense of caring.  I dont recall bad times with john..."[/list]

Originally from "a Cedu group on Yahoo," posted elsewhere on Fornits five years ago:

"I had a long chat with one of our members last night and we talked about the Synanon connection to Cedu as you all know that's where Mel Wasserman got his idea to start Cedu. These are some scary people....we should count our lucky stars that we didn't end up there. There's a web site that gives you the basics about Synanon and has a alumni list that includes John stallone and Morty Molin (who is now deceased) who were two of the 'family heads' when I was at Cedu..."[/list]

[Ursus]

This from a recent interview with Bill Lane, former Synanonite, CEDU staff, and current transporter... Lane attended Narco Farm prior to ending up at Synanon in 1963 (that latter residence for a dozen years, is my best guess).

Lane's addiction landed him in prison three times — six months at Rikers Island penitentiary where his jaw was broken in a fight, then 90 days of hard labor on Hart Island and finally six months at Lexington federal prison in Kentucky.

In exchange for a shorter sentence, Lane volunteered for a program at Lexington — the prison was the federal government's first drug treatment facility, and a controversial one at that — designed for addicts and research. But he quickly discovered that the program was more focused on drug-based experiments than on treatments.

"They called our ward 'The Shooting Gallery,'" he remembers, "because they'd shoot us up with drugs constantly. They'd addict you to a drug — heroin, morphine, whatevah — then they'd take you off it cold turkey to see what would happen. They'd give us new drugs — in my case experimental dolophine (methadone) — and take notes on our reactions."

In the same ward just down the hall, Lane remembers a laboratory where the same experiments were conducted on monkeys and other animals. Prison, he says, just made his addiction worse and his drug connections better. The very day after his discharge from Lexington, he remembers, "I scored, fixed, boom!"[/list]

[Inculcated]

Another interesting bit related to this topic from this paper (pdf link) that directly precedes the information that I posted in response to a question posed about Abraxas on another thread is…

The recognition that the social milieu of the mental patient could be either therapeutic or noxious became widespread in the United States after World War II. The hospitals attempted to create a therapeutic milieu. This effort was influenced initially by the therapeutic community developed in England by Jones (1953) and later by the Synanon treatment program (Yablonsky and Dederich 1965). At the Fort Worth hospital during the years 1964 to 1966, Hughes et al. (1970) attempted to develop a rehabilitation-oriented community of addict patients by implementing intensive group work and by enlisting patient collaboration in the treatment program. This unit was based partly on the Synanon model. During the late 1960s, the Lexington program was reorganized into five relatively autonomous treatment units, each based on the therapeutic community concept and each having about 100 patients (Conrad 1977). All units emphasized daily therapeutic interaction among staff and patients using confrontation as a major technique, with emphasis on current behavior. Emotional disorders also received attention, especially the depression that often emerged as a person became engaged in treatment. One of the units,directed by ex-addicts, resembled Synanon more than the other units. This unit was in operation for 2 years.
Toward the end of the second year the ex-addict leaders regrettably began to behave in an irresponsible manner, which required termination of the unit. Partially self-governing units had existed at the Lexington and Fort Worth hospitals in the years preceding NARA. Most of these units eventually became corrupted by antisocial behavior, with consequent disillusion and anger among staff. Synanon itself degenerated in the 1970s (Deitch and Zweben 1981). Grants to States and communities under Title IV of the NARA and under other legislative authority led to closure of the Fort Worth and Lexington hospitals in the early 1970s. The increasing local services for drug abuse treatment led to decreasing Title Ill commitments.Addicts could be committed legally under Title Ill only if appropriate State or other facilities were not available. Consequently, the hospitals lost their clinical mission, and their research mission was terminated.

[dragonfly]

[Inculcated]

Aw, thank you Daragonfly.

I haven’t come across anything thing about the inception and origins of The Seed on any site that provides detail beyond the gist of approximately three/four sentences.  These typically state something to the effect of mentioning Art Barker and that it [The Seed] was modeled after Synanon and that it lost funding not long after the investigation by Senator Sam Erwin that lead to the report Individual Rights and the Federal Role in Behavior Modification; A Study Prepared by the Staff of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 93rd Congress, 2nd. and that under the Semblers (with others) it transmogrified into Straight

Your link (which I’ll also post here on this thread) has by far the most detailed information about The Narco Farm’s Matrix House than anything else I’ve run across.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1937175/

This is all about The Matrix House