Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Straight, Inc. and Derivatives => Topic started by: dragonfly on March 25, 2011, 09:32:07 PM
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Talking about flashbacks!!Woof and myself were in that group when that Rap Schedule of 1978 was made.Looking at that staff roster makes me think of a menagerie of misfits.Three different staff couples on that roster ended up as husband and wife and one other,Liz Cassidy,married Steve Gay,who was also sitting in group at that time.Two of those couples later on left to help Helen Petermann start LIFE.The other couple eventually became Mr.and Mrs David Crock.You're right,Woof!!!The seeds of hate were even being sown back then!!Let's all sing Zip-a-dee-doo-dah and think happy thoughts!!!
Pura Vida
Sam from Costa Rica
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This is an excerpt from a letter by a Straight-supporting parent to the president of CBS complaining about the depiction of Straight on the investigative journalism program, 60 Minutes: (italics are added for emphasis)
"The child not only
gets the opportunity to get its life back, but also the child gets its family
back"
Note that the parent does not use the adjective "their" when referring to the horrible druggie beast hellspawn, but instead uses the term "it" when referring to children that have been placed in Straight. To me, this may be a Freudian slip, one that is indicative of the objectification of their own children that Straight parents demonstrated, time and time again.
A very telling insight into the mind set of the program supporter can be gleaned from this one sentence, and the adjective twice used to describe the abuse victim in question.
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This is an excerpt from a letter by a Straight-supporting parent to the president of CBS complaining about the depiction of Straight on the investigative journalism program, 60 Minutes: (italics are added for emphasis)
"The child not only
gets the opportunity to get its life back, but also the child gets its family
back"
Note that the parent does not use the adjective "their" when referring to the horrible druggie beast hellspawn, but instead uses the term "it" when referring to children that have been placed in Straight. To me, this may be a Freudian slip, one that is indicative of the objectification of their own children that Straight parents demonstrated, time and time again.
A very telling insight into the mind set of the program supporter can be gleaned from this one sentence, and the adjective twice used to describe the abuse victim in question.
Yeah I read that letter too. Referring to children as "it". To me, that letter proves how deep the washing really was. What kind of person refers to other human beings as "it". Fuckin Josef Mengele type shit. Really sick stuff.
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http://survivingstraightinc.com/documen ... ight_inc-1 (http://survivingstraightinc.com/document_library/federal__state_government_documents_-_straight_inc-1)
There's also a bunch on the SEED
It's about 1,000 pages in all....
There are some very, extremely, insane, criminal implications in there
Kris scanned that stuff by hand ya'll , one page at a time!
What an incredible mother lode of material. And scanning it all... jeesh! A huge thanks and appreciation for the initiative taken, as well as all the hard work to get it on the net! This'll keep me mulling for quite some time... :nods:
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this is my personal favorite...http://survivingstraightinc.com/Florida ... ombine.pdf (http://survivingstraightinc.com/FloridaGovernmentDocuments/StraightInvestigations/Examination-of-Straight-Inc-by-Andrew-Malcolm-to-Drug-Tsar-Carlton-Turner-1982_Combine_Combine.pdf)
While simply worded and evenly formatted it might take most folks a pepcid to read and a measure of gallows humor to tolorate this.
In a nut shell this particular *report* appears to be saying that while the authors (who were consulted for their studies of drug use and for their "particular interest in religious and political cultism") happened to find many parallels between known methods of brainwashing and the Straight milieu, they conclude that after considering the nature of the persons presumed (without any indication of investigation for the purpose of substantiation) to be druggies receiving the reeducation that Straight offered with its bare and isolating facilities, and daily inventory examinations-- then in this case all such is hunky-dory.
"The brainwashers take a person who is acculturated to a given society and they render him entirely hostile to that condition. Straight does this too, but the immediately pre-existing patterns of thought were entirely malignant in relation to the values and behaviours of the inclusive society."
"The third requirement is that there must be a complete denial of the worth of the old self."
"The subject abdicates his past".... by “declaring he is a druggie and that as such he was out of control and injurious to himself and others"
(a “several hundred”+ head count of 5150s… really?)
Everything in the passage starting with “If a person is accepted by the group he comes to recognize …” Is strikingly at odds with the later assertion that “No cataclysmic conversions are promoted or desired”
"Furthermore the choice made by the adolescent seekers after the enlightenment of oblivion must be fully honored…"(Are they for f*ing reals?)
Guys it’s okay cause this was all being done for the greater good and anyone who does not agree is eschewed as being a cultural relativist
(you know those fringe types)
The fourth requirement is that the subject must be an active participant in his own resocialization. Yes, Straight does this.
Self analysis and self criticism, both privately (through the constant preparation of a moral inventory) and publicly (through the forthright series of revelations to the group), are essential to this programme.And this could be dangerous, as it has been in many organizations that use this device. This is the central technique of the group encounter and of many religious and political revivalist movements.History abounds with fearful examples.We knew that this technique would be a vital element of the Straight programme and we were especially careful to be observant regarding its use and possible misuse. The group encounter, when it is not controlled, can be a dangerous instrument; and many studies have attested to the psychological and even physical injuries that have been attributed to its use.
They then go on to essentially convey hey but here with these types (you know) --it’s a-okay.
And folks apparently it’s only sadism if it’s done in an intermittent and unreliable manner because well that would be disorienting…
It is obvious, however, that a director bent on cruel humiliation could hold that the newcomer had so abused his life as to have given up his right to be a human being. As such he would be required to crawl about on all fours or eat without benefit of utensils. The statement as it is currently made at Straight is acceptable but great care must be taken to check any evolution of this idea in the direction of outright sadism.
...feeling queasy outrage as I read...
“Straight is relentlessly normative.”
^Well timed by the authors because this reader needed a laugh, albeit a bitter and rueful one.
Pfft...It gets a little sticky where the authors try to claim limited exposure (despite the 12 hour days involving routine "group revelations" that were "often intense" and the other 12 hours spent shifted into host homes) while also recommending extended aftercare and follow-up.(but oddly very definitively expressed not for the purpose of evaluating success rates)
Do these examiners who find importance in reeducation enough to give a pass on an earlier stated cultic criterion find an actual education for those children at Straight to be as important? Nope.
Is the programme anti- intellectual?children at Straight do not engage in the sort of intellectual pursuits that might be found at a school or university.They do not, for that matter, even read books or watch television programmes devoted to ideas. They are not there for the purpose of expanding their knowledge of intellectual affairs. They are there, nevertheless, to exercise their intelligences. The programme is extremely rational but it is also very simple and direct. It is pragmatic…
::puke:: The rest pretty much states that since the perils of drug abuse are so...well perilous that this peril must be weighed against the possible perils of the programme that they are asked to examine. The authors appear to have concluded that you all would’ve been dead insane or in jail without accepting a little infringement on basic human rights.... dignity,education or peeing w/out observation and what have you.
Straight, we are inclined to suspect, is going to be recognized, eventually, as a national resource.
Well that’s that.
------off topic -ish-----for those un-interested please, pardon what might seem "side talk", but I found an interesting contrast here with his earlier work----
BTW, in case you were wondering about Andrew I. Malcom, MD:
He is the author of a less apparently pandering work that offers some interesting WTF? Reflections when statements within are compared with his report of Straight. “The Craving for The High” (http://http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:_9qAvF2W7_wJ:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2370226/pdf/canfamphys00372-0052.pdf+andrew+I.+malcolm+m.d.+canada+The+craving&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShYMrEGt78uq_IQD43nPTHR6ANUO-nSFgoU8UWFQdXgGt4QP9bTjcle1JvJ2hazrjPigxcxHZiwMIzhaam04F-hBfvbsNzoEVhiDMBSUhhEko4yh_7PIoYZROCXnraPs9h3gbeR&sig=AHIEtbSb-7RdMxnDAUvrjjgvWnd-Tl6QLg)
Summary: Youth today is being fed with the message that self-transcendence is all-important and that all worldly details should be secondary to this great aim This message is being perpetrated both by drug users and members of such groups as the human potential movement. We must be aware not only of the power of drugs in inducing an altered state of consciousness, but also of the power of the group in reinforcing a set of values that make this altered state a most desirable phenomenon. Undesirable effects can be produced in the emotionally disturbed or immature person, to the point where seeking a 'high 'becomes the sole object in life.
Excerpted: “The urge to suspend rational thinking has become one of the most actively promoted goals of our time. It is suggested that the only sensible reaction to the dehumaniz-ing processes of the technological society is to emphasize what is accidental and spontaneous in man. Man, it is said, is not by nature rational; it is his emotional life that is meaningful; and therefore if his fullest potential is to be realized he must disconnect his intellect and promote the release of all those elemental passions that are normally held in check by his tyrannical cerebra.
This, in effect, is the most essential dictum of both the drug-using subculture and the drug-free human potential movement.”
Dr. Malcolm assesses the need for an altered state of consciousness that is seen so frequently today. (http://http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:OJJ-8K2ZQiEJ:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2370236/pdf/canfamphys00372-0004a.pdf+andrew+I.+malcolm+m.d.+canada&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESj6bfyHaz5dtKPyB-J_GrzUv-ZZYJtRzB_glZpFPhR4eRmPpnDb0TZ61m1OsQ6bfK4b7fTc6-ZJpilP7HxT8GN7J17xUDffZZ00UWvbjAm5x5ouK9mK3b6kimfg4xIxp3UxQZjr&sig=AHIEtbRrmusFYPvV7KBvEvTPe1zDGm1N4g)
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this is my personal favorite...
http://survivingstraightinc.com/Florida ... ombine.pdf (http://survivingstraightinc.com/FloridaGovernmentDocuments/StraightInvestigations/Examination-of-Straight-Inc-by-Andrew-Malcolm-to-Drug-Tsar-Carlton-Turner-1982_Combine_Combine.pdf)
OK I just read this one. So it seems that either Straight did a major dog and pony show for this guy or he was on the Straight payroll somehow. The report is so obviously based on faulty info and observations. Its like he accepted every Straight lie at face value. Anybody know the history behind this "report"??????
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I remember Jim Hartz calling these "therapeutic" measures PEER PRESSURE BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION
Tomato----to-mah-toe
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Please contact me for full documents of crimes committed during a four year period . You may contact mike S or the webdiva for my phone number.
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This is an excerpt from a letter by a Straight-supporting parent to the president of CBS complaining about the depiction of Straight on the investigative journalism program, 60 Minutes: (italics are added for emphasis)
"The child not only
gets the opportunity to get its life back, but also the child gets its family
back"
Note that the parent does not use the adjective "their" when referring to the horrible druggie beast hellspawn, but instead uses the term "it" when referring to children that have been placed in Straight. To me, this may be a Freudian slip, one that is indicative of the objectification of their own children that Straight parents demonstrated, time and time again.
A very telling insight into the mind set of the program supporter can be gleaned from this one sentence, and the adjective twice used to describe the abuse victim in question.
Yeah I read that letter too. Referring to children as "it". To me, that letter proves how deep the washing really was. What kind of person refers to other human beings as "it". Fuckin Josef Mengele type shit. Really sick stuff.
Damn right it is! That creepy-ass quote brings to mind "Buffalo Bill" in The Silence of The Lambs:
"It puts the lotion in the basket."
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this is my personal favorite...
http://survivingstraightinc.com/Florida ... ombine.pdf (http://survivingstraightinc.com/FloridaGovernmentDocuments/StraightInvestigations/Examination-of-Straight-Inc-by-Andrew-Malcolm-to-Drug-Tsar-Carlton-Turner-1982_Combine_Combine.pdf)
OK I just read this one. So it seems that either Straight did a major dog and pony show for this guy or he was on the Straight payroll somehow. The report is so obviously based on faulty info and observations. Its like he accepted every Straight lie at face value. Anybody know the history behind this "report"??????
I assume you mean Andrew Malcolm's report, yes? Although I don't know how Dr. Malcolm in particular came to write this report, other than that someone from Straight apparently asked him to (Dupont? Hartz?), a lil bit of research uncovers some possible context...
Dr. Andrew Ian Malcolm was a psychiatrist based in Toronto, who apparently had a real issue with any kind of mind-altering experience, especially via, but by no means restricted to, recreational drugs. He also railed against the pharmaceutical companies. And he allegedly wrote a couple of books on the subject.
I've also read reference to his research on cults. Apparently he wrote a book on that too, although I still haven't actually pored through (or found) any of his material myself.
And... he also appears to have been not infrequently hired to psychoanalyze defendants in court cases, some of those cases having been a bit notorious. Not surprisingly, Dr. Malcolm also wrote a book on the pros and cons of using a psychiatrist in court.
His big thing, however, perhaps impressed upon him by mere historical circumstances, appears to have been the dangers of P-O-T.
Back in the early 1970s, Canada was mulling over the possibility of legalizing marijuana. A five member commission headed by Gerald Le Dain was assigned to research the situation for a few years (and spent quite a hunk of taxpayer money in the process). When the commission finally came out with its reports and summaries in 1972, the recommendation was for the decriminalization of personal amounts.
Andrew Malcolm went ballistic. Certainly, he wasn't the only one, but the press seems to have quoted him quite a bit. Although I'm sure that Dr. Malcolm was considered to be a real expert, his prolific appearances in the press may have also had something to do with the colorful sound bites he proffered during interviews. Jes' saying...
At any rate, I'm sure that Straight, Inc. was quite aware of him.
Personally, I'd venture that this report was commissioned by Straight, Inc. for potential use as defense material in the event of lawsuits filed against them. Dr. Andrew Malcolm's well-known position on the matter of drug abuse, his former employment as researcher for the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Research Foundation of Ontario, his averred (or inferred) expertise with usual cult practices and modes of influence, and his ample experience as an expert witness in court cases would have all played into this. Straight, Inc. probably gave him a list of key issues they wanted him to address, and he ... addressed them. Much of the language in this report is absolutely like that of a rebuttal against charges levied.
One more thing. I can't shake the impression that this was supposed to pass as an "objective scientific report." Generally speaking, one means of working towards such a goal would be to have multiple observers collaborate on this type of project. Dr. Malcolm appears to have striven for an approximation of that by bringing along his wife who, as far as I can tell, had no experience nor interest whatsoever in "adolescent drug abuse treatment facilities" other than, perhaps, that of supporting her husband and whatever his issues may have been. This may well be a horribly unfair presumption to make on my part, and I sincerely apologize for that, but that's simply the impression I get. Fwiw.
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I guess we know who the "anonymous" donor is now, LOL... Good stuff Dragonfly... My personal favorites are the handwritten list of names that includes Elizabeth Tayor, the White House memos about the Sembler dinner date oh, and the congressman who plugged the dedicated parents in the DC area... if you could get that MEL RIDDILE testimony online with that, that would be awesome!
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/se ... o=ED259251 (http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED259251&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED259251)
it's there or at least a link to info where you can order it. My paper copy is buried somewhere in a mountain of other paper copies. You could get it quicker yourself, I do believe... I think it took me 2 weeks or so :rocker:
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this is my personal favorite...
http://survivingstraightinc.com/Florida ... ombine.pdf (http://survivingstraightinc.com/FloridaGovernmentDocuments/StraightInvestigations/Examination-of-Straight-Inc-by-Andrew-Malcolm-to-Drug-Tsar-Carlton-Turner-1982_Combine_Combine.pdf)
For better indexing by Google and "searchability," here's the first doc contained within that pdf:
-------------- • -------------- • --------------
scribbled in upper right hand corner:
CarltoN E. TURNER
Room 218
OEOB
456-6555
(date stamp: 24 MAR 1982)
An Examination of STRAIGHT INCORPORATED (http://http://survivingstraightinc.com/FloridaGovernmentDocuments/StraightInvestigations/Examination-of-Straight-Inc-by-Andrew-Malcolm-to-Drug-Tsar-Carlton-Turner-1982_Combine_Combine.pdf)
-------------- < page break > --------------
An Examination of STRAIGHT INCORPORATED
____________________________________________[/list]
There were several reasons why Straight, Inc. asked us to go to St. Petersburg to examine their programme and to prepare a critical report: we have been students of the use and abuse of drugs for over twenty years; we have a particular interest in the nature of religious and political cultism; and we have studied the techniques of persuasion in some detail. We have collaborated on the writing of numerous papers and four books on these diverse subjects. And, finally, we have no connection whatsoever with Straight or any of its people. It was likely, then, that we would submit an objective and unbiased report and that Straight, as a result, might benefit from our observations.
Before we went to St. Petersburg we spoke to Robert L. Dupont, M.D., who had himself seen the programme in action and expressed much interest in it. Dr. Dupont pointed out, however, that there were certain aspects of the programme that had been criticized in the past, and he felt that an appraisal of these elements was especially needed. We prepared, accordingly, a series of questions that included those of Dr. Dupont but which, in the end, comprised a far larger list. We then set out to answer these questions as fully as we could in the course of a six day intensive exposure to every aspect of the Straight programme.
We would like to say, at the outset, that everyone at Straight — the Board members, the executive staff, the senior and junior staffs, the trainees and the members of the Straight community — were extraordinarily helpful to us. The were, all of them, open and forthcoming; and in spite of the nature of our consultation we did not detect any hostile or defensive attitudes or any attempt at deception. We saw the process of Straight, just as it was, between August 20 and August 25, 1981. We did not participate: we observed; and we talked to many people and groups of people when they were not actually involved in the operation of the programme. In addition to this we were given a complete collection of the written materials used at Straight.
We will consider each of the questions on our list. These questions are not of equal importance nor is the order of their inclusion here of any significance. We assume that the reader of this report has some comprehension of what Straight is all about. That is to say the reader knows that Straight is designed to bring about a reversal of the system of values and behaviours that characterize the drug using teenage subculture by bringing to bear on the participants massive peer pressure to eschew the use of drugs and subscribe, once again, to the values that have characterized the mainstream of American culture for some time.
What facilities does Straight have to offer?
The most striking initial observation is that there is a complete absence of any of the diverting things to do that characterize most other drug treatment centres. Thus there is no swimming pool, no gymnasium and no outdoor sports space. There are no movies, hikes, ball games or dances. There are short periods of simple stretching exercises but there is no physiotherapy and no occupational therapy. This is very noticeable but it is not dismaying. The purpose of Straight is to offer a drug free environment in which the concentrated focus will be on the goal of reacculturation. No ancillary diversions, however therapeutic they are held to be in other centres, are used here.
Straight offers substenance, and this is quite adequately supplied, and a roof over everyone's head; but there are no entertainments and nothing to facilitate the improvement of skills other than interpersonal ones. There is no woodworking shop, no pool table and no library. It is true that all such activities are elements of the inclusive culture but it is assumed that the crucial learning that must be done by the participants for the relatively short period of time that they are at Straight has to do with coming to understand how they might function in society without using drugs of any kind. It may be that this is one of the reasons why Straight can offer help to so many people at so low a cost; but it was clear to us that it was not economy that engendered the elimination of every activity from didactic lectures to assistance in the creative use of leisure time. These things were left out because they were considered to be inessential to the main purpose. We could not fault Straight on this point.
Indeed we did, at least for a while, seriously question the failure to give information about the effects of drug use. We did not think, for long, that there would be any" advantage in having experts deliver lectures because we realized that this particular population had been exposed to such influences for some time without for a moment being guided by it. There is a place for drug education but there is no doubt that its greatest impact is on those adolescents who have not already determined upon a course of drug habituation. The population at Straight was made up of people who had become thoroughly involved in the drug using culture and they were refractory to the didactic approach. We thought, after that, that there might be some advantage in having individual participants prepare statements themselves that they might, in due course, give to the general group. We found, however, that the undeniable effects of drug use were far more graphically given in a most unorganized way in the course of the group meetings. The dramatic effect of a serious testimonial touching on the experience of a former user of marijuana, cocaine, methaqualone and alcohol was far more affecting and memorable than would be any learned dissertation on the same subject. We gave up on that criticism.
Does Straight engage in brainwashing?
We had the distinct impression that it was because of criticism from various quarters asserting that the Straight programme brainwashed the participants that we were consulted in the first place.
Now the term brainwashing carries a heavy emotional freight. It implies that through the use of various techniques of persuasion a person's sentiments, values and attitudes are wiped out and replaced by a system of thought and feeling that is utterly novel and alien to the pre-existing personality. Of course all psychotherapeutic interventions attempt to change various aspects of the subject's ways of living in the world. It is assumed that his maladjustment, and his psychic distress, is referable to his faulty thinking, feeling and acting and that these must be corrected if he is to become a comfortable, productive and socially responsible person. It would be absurd for us to derogate all such efforts on the part of helping people by using the word brainwashing to describe their work. We should, rather, reserve this word for programmes that are not only drastic but that also apply all of the following essential techniques.
1. The subject must be isolated from his accustomed environment, and constant surveillance must be maintained over him. He must be made completely dependent on the resocializing institution for the satisfaction of all his needs.
Now in the case of Straight this first requirement is satisfied but this is so for as brief a time as possible. The adolescent is taken out of his home and school and he spends twelve of his hours at Straight and the other twelve in a foster home. He is never alone. We may deplore this practice but if we are to be entirely practical we must recognize that this is the only way to establish a drug free environment, and such an environment is a sine qua non for recovery from drug dependence in virtually every case. Hospitals and jails remove people from their usual places for various reasons but, unfortunately, they do not very often maintain not only drug free environments but also an attitude, on the part of the patients or inmates, that such a condition is desirable. Straight meets this problem head on and satisfies, accordingly, the first requirement.
2. The second condition is that all past statuses must be given up. Straight does this insofar as it accords no value whatsoever to the drugged state or to the values of the drug culture. The subject declares that he is "a druggie" and that as such he was out of control and injurious to himself and others. At Straight it is strictly the culture and status of the druggie that is abhorred. The years leading up to the use of drugs and the goals that were never entirely extirpated by the drug user are honoured. If a person is accepted by the group because he comes to recognize that the intoxicated life is less than agreeable, then we would be perverse indeed if we held that this was an exhibition of brainwashing.
It is quite true that the drugged mind is not accepted by Straight and that, on the contrary, the drug free mind is acclaimed; but such positions are maintained by the general society, and therefore we must see that the process encouraged by Straight is entirely normative. It is normative unless we hold that the persistently drugged state is the ideal condition to which our society must aspire. Straight, clearly, does not satisfy the second requirement.
3. The third requirement is that there must be a complete denial of the worth of the old self. The brainwashers take a person who is acculturated to a given society and they render him entirely hostile to that condition. Straight does this too, but the immediately pre-existing patterns of thought were entirely malignant in relation to the values and behaviours of the inclusive society. An advanced cultural relativist might well hold that the drug culture is as beneficial to its members and as worthy of respect as is the inclusive society. Straight says quite simply that the culture of a group of drugged 16 year olds is not on a level with that of their drug free peers. We agree with this position and we would like to point out, moreover, that the cultural relativists have done an immense amount of injury to the adolescents of the United States over the last twenty years. They have disseminated confusion and anguish with their repeated assertions to the effect that if the country is to be truly free then no moral distinctions should be made between the choice of continuous intoxication and the drug free state. Many learned scholars have insisted that the truly civilized society would encourage the making of the wise personal choice with regard to drug use and that, furthermore, the choice made by the adolescent seeker after the enlightenment of oblivion must be fully honoured. The drug culture, for them, is just another interesting and legitimate facet of our complex society.
Straight does not support this position, but it is only the moral worth of the drugged lifestyle that is rejected. To attempt to assist a drug afflicted adolescent to learn, all over again, the values of the society to which he subscribed before he started using drugs is not to satisfy the third requirement of brainwashing. It is not a radically new system that is presented to the subject; it is, rather, the system that he has been familiar with all his life and which he rejected after he became dependent on the mind altering chemical.
4. The fourth requirement is that the subject must be an active participant in his own resocialization. Yes, Straight does this. Self analysis and self criticism, both privately (through the constant preparation of a moral inventory) and publicly (through the forthright series of revelations to the group), are essential to this programme. And this could be dangerous, as it has been in many organizations that use this device. This is the central technique of the group encounter and of many religious and political revivalist movements. History abounds with fearful examples.
We knew that this technique would be a vital element of the Straight programme and we were especially careful to be observant regarding its use and possible misuse. The group encounter, when it is not controlled, can be a dangerous instrument; and many studies have attested to the psychological and even physical injuries that have been attributed to its use.
Yet there are some applications of this method that are not only benign but also helpful. Alcoholics Anonymous uses a variant of the group encounter with much benignity and value. Group payshotherapy
[sic] led by responsible mental health workers can be similarly effective and benevolent.
The variation used at Straight is intriguing because it would seem to be both novel and non-injurious. A large group of 100 or more people are faced by two staff members, and a topic will be suggested. The people wave their hands, indicating their desire to speak, and one of the staff members issues the first name of one of them. This person then stands up and comments, usually for only a few minutes, on some aspect of his own life that throws light on the topic at hand. If it is sensed by some others that the speaker is not being quite honest, their waving hands may be recognized and a second speaker may address himself directly to the person already standing. His comment is brief and the first speaker then continues to the end of his statement. The staff member may also interject a question but it was clear to us that the role of the staffer was to be the undoubted authority in the room. This was not a leaderless, gut level encounter in which any member of the group may be centred out and relentlessly attacked from every quarter without the support of any one at all. At Straight the encounter was very carefully controlled. It was parliamentary in that the staff member representing the chair would recognize a single member and no interruption would be permitted without the permission of the chair. Indeed Houses of Parliament are frequently in a condition of pandemonium and very little respect may be shown to the person who has the floor. At Straight such respect is the absolute rule. We observed some violations of this rule but the interesting thing about that was that the person who presumed to interrupt was accorded no support by either the staff member or the group. In a high school classroom the interrupting person might well be regarded with some esteem; at Straight the interrupter is simply ignored. There is no reward for breaking the rules of order.
In short Straight did emphasize self criticism and some of the confessions that we heard were made with an immense amount of feeling; but we did not feel that the technique as it was applied at Straight was intrinsically injurious. It was checked by rules of conduct subscribed to by the entire group. It was restrained and at no time was it specifically designed to bring about irrationality. The brainwashers seek to reduce the critical capacity of their subjects' minds. At Straight the emphasis was on just the opposite: the participants should think and they should at no time set aside their natural ability to pursue a logical sequence of thought.[/list]
5. The fifth requirement is that the resocializers must present both negative and positive sanctions. That is to say the brainwasher will advise his subject that some dire punishment is available in the event of non-conformity. The principal negative sanction at Straight was the often repeated assertion by speaker after speaker that great misery would attend any re-entry into the drug culture. The motivation to stay drug free was reinforced through references to the unpleasant life of the confirmed drug user. This, we suppose, was a device not dissimilar to the evangelist's offer of eternal damnation; but at Straight it was not something that one had to accept on faith. It was the real thing because every member present had experienced it. The brimstone was in the recent and easily remembered past and it was not in any sense an irrational leap of faith to believe that a similar environment might have to be endured in the future. Apart from that there was the withholding of advancement and its attendant privileges, and the understanding that temporary demotion to a lower phase was always possible.
This advancement is a vital element of the programme. It is a strongly positive sanction. The adolescent begins in Phase 1 without any rights or responsibilities. It is understood that as the drug is gradually metabolized and excreted he will be able, perhaps for the first time in years, to think clearly. For two weeks, accordingly, he participates in the sessions but he does not have any special rights or privileges. And then, in the course of time, and through the sought after concensus of his peers, he progresses through the five phases of the programme. The reward for relinquishing the interests and values of the drug user is always promotion to a higher level. Thus Straight emphasizes very potent sanctions of an altogether positive nature.
No one is abused physically, no one is denied food or rest, no one is publicly humiliated by having his head shaved or by having to sit in a corner or by having to wear a dunce cap. No such devices, from the threat of torture to the use of mechanical restraints or solitary confinement, are used at Straight.
Peer pressure is, of course, tremendously powerful; and this is a constant element in the programme; but this potent instrument is not, in our opinion, abused in any way. Misbehaviour is certainly not countenanced but it is always handled gently and with an astonishing amount of restraint and affection.
Our conclusion, with regard to the use of brainwashing techniques at Straight, was that one would have to broaden the definition of this word to the point of meaninglessness for it to be applied there.
Is Straight sadistic?
This question was a major one for us because we have observed much sadism in the human potential movement, and also in the cults, in recent years. Indeed the true brainwashers are determined to reduce their subjects to a condition of helpless dependence so that they can oversee their re-development in the manner desired by them. And in order to bring about a state of utter powerlessness many sadistic techniques may be used. At Straight the opportunity to cause extreme regression was certainly there, as it would be whenever a bewildered and possibly frightened person finds himself in an unfamiliar and quite structured environment. Indeed one of the first observations we made was the grasping of the belt loops of every first phase person whenever he had to move from one place to another. The rationale of this practice was based on the idea that the newcomer had established that his life was unmanageable. He needed, therefore, to have a hand on him wherever he went. This technique held within it the seed of much abuse and Straight would be well advised to watch it carefully. As it stands it is not really offensive and it lasts, in any case, for a relatively short period of time. It is obvious, however, that a director bent on cruel humiliation could hold that the newcomer had so abused his life as to have given up his right to be a human being. As such he would be required to crawl about on all fours or eat without benefit of utensils. The statement as it is currently made at Straight is acceptable but great care must be taken to check any evolution of this idea in the direction of outright sadism.
In another sense the group could conceivably be sadistic toward some person chosen, perhaps through his own disruptiveness, to be a target for special abuse. This potential exists in all human societies and it is sometimes savage and relentless. Groups can be converted into dangerous instruments and, as such, they can become righteously uncompromising and unfeeling.
At Straight the possibility of such a development is checked in several ways. First of all there is a prevailing mood of tolerance and affection. It is a rule that no one may comment on another person behind his back. No one, moreover, is ever rewarded for unjustly attacking another person with his words. There appeared to be a great deal of sensitivity to this and the group was extraordinarily forgiving and supportive of the person thus offended.
Secondly, the form of the encounter was such that no one person could ever be singled out for more than a few minutes. The floor was constantly given to a sequence of people and this meant that no one ever had to endure the central position for very long. It might be argued, of course, that for greatest effect it would be desirable to alter this pattern so that a particularly resistant person might experience the full and extended onslaught of his fellows. This is the way it is done in most places where variants of the encounter are used; but Straight would be well advised to maintain its check on this potentially dangerous practice.
Thirdly there are frequent staff conferences in which there is detailed input from many people touching on the progress, and the vulnerability too, of everyone. At these meetings it is agreed that a particular person is in need of staff protection and, perhaps, even individual counselling; and it would be the responsibility of everyone to see that these things would be done.
And fourthly there is, in the various phases, input from foster parents, and later the parents themselves, that might reveal the need for protection.
The Straight programme is intricately checked in these several ways and the result is a strong sense of safety and the feeling that good sense is liable to prevail. In fact the word that kept occurring to us in the course of this consultation was that Straight was humane. This means more than that its intentions were good; it means that there was a persistent desire to be decent and loving and an equally intense desire to avoid being hurtful or hateful.
Does Straight promote any particular religious system?
Straight is an accumulation of wisdom derived from many sources. One of these is Alcoholics Anonymous. The twelve steps of AA are condensed into seven steps at Straight; but the message is very much the same.
The first two steps are as follows:
1. Admit we were powerless over drugs and came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
2. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
There is absolutely no preaching of any kind, at Straight. The organization has no religious affiliation and no creed peculiar to any particular religion. There are no church services and there is no pastoral counselling. The adolescents and the staff at Straight have diverse religious backgrounds but organized religion has no place in the programme. The Lord's Prayer is recited by the entire group, the concepts of God and of prayer are mentioned in several of the steps, and individual speakers may refer to religious experiences in their brief testimonials before the group; but beyond that there is no further emphasis. This, in our opinion, is correct. It is an important check on the potential for cultism that is the next question to be considered.
Is Straight a cult?
The word cult is, of course, very difficult to define. A number of organizations do, however, have certain characteristics in common that permit us to use this usually troubling term.
Cults tend to be exclusive. They are either splinter groups that have broken off from some established system or they are the creation de novo of some particularly charismatic person. In either case they are usually embattled early on because of their heretical, antisocial or isolationist beliefs and practices. The novitiates are encouraged to abandon the evil ways of their former friends and relatives and adopt instead the enlightened ideas of the leader. Strict obedience to the rules of the cult are required and no return to the general society may ever be contemplated. The cult is typically alienating and the devotees are caused to uncritically accept the idea that the cult is right in all things and the inclusive society is wrong.
Straight is relentlessly normative. Its stated goal is not any perpetual attachment to Straight but a gradual return to full and productive membership in the general society. Rather than advising the members that their parents are evil, Straight makes strong efforts to bridge the chasm that has opened between the child and his parents over the years. The goal is the re-establishment of the family unit. This is not the mark of the cult.
Straight is not a secret society. There are no arcane rites, no mysteries, no body of knowledge shared only by the initiates. On the contrary Straight is an extraordinarily open society and it welcomes understanding.
But Straight is very powerful too. It has developed a number of practices that, in combination, are obviously very potent. Adolescent drug users are famously resistant to any sort of appeal to sobriety and yet we observed several hundred young people who gave every indication of being positively affected by the programme. The question arises, then, whether Straight could be subverted as have a number of other programmes in other parts of the country.
There is no doubt that the Board of Directors and the staff are all acutely aware of this problem and that they are determined to avoid it This is admirable, and it would seem that they have built into the design of the programme a number of checks that would prevent the undesired evolution into an exclusive and inward turning cult.
Straight is determinedly rational. The adolescents are not subjected to either sensory bombardment or sensory deprivation. They are not rendered hungry, fatigued or physiologically unbalanced. They are nev[er] subjected to any form of isolation. They are exhorted only to think. The[y] are told to use their heads and to respect the free and normal functioning of their minds. No cataclysmic conversions are promoted or desired. Nothing is done to bring about the altered state of consciousness that might lead to utter, blind devotion in an entirely mindless way.
Straight, furthermore, is a non-profit organization. No one benefits except through the payment of a salary to the staff members. The cult, as is well known, often leads to the enrichment of the leader. No one stands to become rich at Straight and this is as it should be.
And thirdly, the turnover of people at Straight would make it very difficult for the organization to become progressively more powerful through recruitment. People enter, stay for weeks or months, and leave. They leave to re-enter the mainstream of society.
And the leaders. At the present time the staff members at the St. Petersburg location are outstanding. They know that this is so and they are justly proud of what they have achieved. But they are not megalomaniac. Not one of them gave the slightest indication that they harboured the hope that they might become rich, famous, or powerful. The morale was high, as far as we could see, but there was no enchantment with the experience of increasing influence. The staff, furthermore, had frequent meetings in which any tendency toward the development of cultishness would be spotted and checked. These meetings were not passionate, they were merely sensible; and there was no evidence whatsoever of messianism in even its most early forms.
And finally the Board of Directors is active and observant. This Board, wisely constituted and intensely interested, is in a position to detect and correct any shift in the direction of destructive cultism.
That is the way it is right now. But there is clearly the potential for a most disagreeable transformation that could lead to the end of this programme. If the present leadership should be replaced by other people who are less vigilant, less democratic, and less concerned to defend against the rise of a charismatic guru, then the transfiguration of this programme might well take place. The adolescents themselves, with the assistance of the junior and senior staffs, may well do most of the work in the daily sessions, but the leadership is crucial. At the moment this leadership is rational and humane and it evinces not the slightest interest in creating out of this programme a vehicle for personal aggrandizement. Even so we think it would be advisable for Straight to take yet another look at Alcoholics Anonymous and discover how that organization has managed to maintain itself for decades without any signs of devolution. It is, of course, the twelve traditions of AA that prevent any adverse changes from occurring. A similar group of traditions should be prepared by Straight; a constitution, if you like, a written system of laws that could not be changed without much careful consideration and without the agreement of the executive staff and the Board of Directors.
There is no problem in St. Petersburg. The problem is far more liable to arise in one of the satellite programmes that are certain to be opened in distant cities over the years. There should be, accordingly, a very strong central office and this office should maintain tight control over the satellites even as these outlying programmes develop certain characteristics peculiar to their diverse regions.
In any case our conclusion was that the St. Petersburg Straight could not, in any sense at all, be correctly described as a cult.
Can Straight be transplanted?
Yes, providing it jumps from city to city in precisely the way it did to Sarasota and Atlanta. That is to say a nucleus of children and parents moving through the various phases becomes large enough to permit the transfer of this entire segment to the home city under the leadership of a carefully chosen director.
An important part of this is, of course, the training of staff members who work with the children who will eventually be transferred and who move with the group when it departs to establish the satellite. This procedure is ponderous but it is very sensible and orderly. It is by far the most effective way of setting up a viable satellite. The problem with it is that it will come under much criticism by people in distant cities who will hear about Straight and who will importune the organization for the sudden establishment of new centres. We predict that this will happen but we have no doubt that any relaxation of the guidelines that now exist will result in deterioration and disappointment. The delays will not be unconscionable. If Atlanta, for example, should thrive there is no reason why it could not begin to collect a number of children from another city. The growth of Straight could be, in that case, quite adequate; and its quality could be safely controlled.
There will be imitators, we have no doubt; and many of these will be distressing. Straight should be willing to advise any serious programme but it should be prepared to disclaim any responsibility for the work of any programme that does not maintain a sufficiently high standard of quality. Straight, after all, represents the state of the art; and one of its great responsibilities will be to remain exemplary and as helpful as possible. Everything should be available to everyone except for one thing: the name Straight should be carefully guarded and assigned only to bone fide satellites of the original programme.
Does Straight advance a magic humanist philosophy?
There are certain values that seem to make social living more harmonious, more safe and more productive for the majority of the people. The society must expect adherence to certain general principles or else social disruption and much unhappiness will certainly be the result.
Nevertheless the diversity that is found in any group of people suggests that it would be unwise to think that it would be possible, or even desirable, to expect the universal attainment of some hypothetical ideal. The magic humanist, who is often well meaning, is inclined to think that such a goal is reasonable. He is a humanist, all right, but he is unrealistic. His hopes for man outreach the possibility of realization. His thinking is woolly, Utopian and magical, and his programmes are potentially dangerous.
Straight, for its part, has no illusions. It is obviously not in the business of creating saints or even uniformly right thinking citizens. Straight, it seemed to us, was in the business of offering hope to as many young people and their families as it could. And this hope having been gained would be the essential benefit that its graduates could take with them on their return to the outside world. We listened hard but we heard no unrealistic or magic humanist thought at Straight. This was a further indication that this organization was in no danger of becoming a cult.
Is parental involvement essential?
It is very difficult to criticize this element of the programme because it is obviously an integral part of the plan as it now exists. The parents are caused to give the programme their intense support. In every case a great deal of personal sacrifice is expected and, we gathered, gained. In fact it was apparent that a child might well be discharged from the programme in the event of non-involvement on the part of the parents. This is excellent as far as it goes and it will obviously go far. There are certainly enough children with truly concerned and dedicated parents to carry Straight for a long time to come. And it is clear that the involvement of the parents is a powerful stimulus to the children who are attempting to rid themselves of their burdensome condition. It was remarkable, in fact, to see children who had utterly dismissed their parents in the past express, after just a few weeks, an intense desire to simply talk to these previously despised and rejected people. Straight is obviously much interested in the idea of the strong and mutually supportive family. The child may be returned to the community and to the school but, above all, he is returned to the family. This is an admirable goal but what troubled us was that it did not accommodate to the serious problems of the child who had been utterly rejected by his family either before or after his use of drugs. At some time in the future some way may be found for the admission of children who have parents who are either physically or psychologically absent from their lives. Such children should not be deprived of the benefits that flow from Straight even though it is likely that the most favourable prognoses will occur in the cases of children who have families that have the potential for unity.
The concept of the foster home, as it is now employed at Straight, might become the basis of an extended relationship in the cases of those children who do not and never will have an interested parent.
Is Straight scientific?
No, it is not. Its ideas have come from various places, some of them scientific, and some of these have been exhaustively studied in other places. But Straight is not oriented toward science. Just as it offers no miraculous pseudo-religious cures so does it avoid making any claims for miraculous pseudo-scientific cures. It says, instead, that it is all hard, practical, personal work and the reward for patience and persistence is a more comfortable and more productive life.
The problem, of course, is that Straight really does not know what happens to a good many of its graduates. And it will be criticized for this in the future. And this really is a problem because the alternative may be just as dangerous. Straight could hire an increasingly large Evaluation Studies Department just as have most of the drug programmes in the country. This bureaucratic operation might easily become overbearing and demanding, and the weight of interest could shift from doing the clinical world of re-acculturation to that of carrying out progressively more esoteric studies on diverse subjects.
At first glance it would certainly seem to be desirable to know exactly what degree of success is being achieved by various sorts of people; but the experience of many organizations is that this shift in interest has a deleterious effect on the basic programme that existed in the beginning. Perhaps the best and safest answer would be for Straight to have very little to do with evaluations of this sort or with any other kind of research. Instead it would encourage universities or governments to undertake this increasingly more expensive task. Straight is not rich and so it should remain. To do all the intricate work of the anthropologists, the psychologists and the epidemiologists would be to necessitate the creation of a vast bureaucracy. Straight would be well advised to keep its professional staff to a minimum and permit itself to be studied, evaluated and perhaps validated by extramural agencies. It is not that such studies are unimportant, It is just that there is a tendency for clinical operations to introduce research functions and find, in the end, that the latter have become dominant and terminally expensive. The spontaneity and resourcefulness of the well run self-help organization are usually injured by scientists. These learned people are inclined to be suspicious of such unpredictable variables, and their efforts to control that which they deplore are often counter-productive.
Having said all this we must hasten to add that the recent hiring of a single person to maintain contact with graduated families is perfectly desirable. The burden of his work will be clinical and consonant with the rest of the programme. He will find out, for example, whether there is a felt need for refresher weekends. We will no doubt look into the possibility of setting up regular or occasional group discussions in places other than the Straight building. He may help to clarify the role of the very advanced people called Seventh Steppers in the wider society. And he will generally work to maintain the spirit and presence of Straight among those who have passed through the phases and have moved back into the community.
All this is more than acceptable. Our warning alludes only to the looming bureaucracy that would unbalance the elegant and very human structure of the organization as it now exists.
Does Straight turn out zombies?
Having worked in the drug field for many years we know what burnt out people can look like. Having studied cults for some time we also know what dependent devotees tend to look like. Both of these groups present members who lack sparkle, natural brightness, and an agreeable range of affect. They often seem automatic and their responses are either dulled or transparently doctrinaire.
We saw these things at Straight but we saw them among the people who had only recently joined the group. As the children progresse through the various phases they seemed to be positively more alert and spontaneous. The people in the most advanced stages seemed to have regained their humanity. They had humour, resilience and high spirits. They just seemed to be normal adolescents. They were not paragons, not saints; but they were positively not zombies. A brief aside: we went for lunch to a restaurant some distance from the building. And the waitress said, quite cheerily, "You're from Straight." We said we were and she told us that she was too and that she had seen us there. She was in Phase 4 and was on one of her day's off and therefore working in the restaurant. She was friendly, at ease, and in absolutely no sense zombie-like.
Are the children with what Straight calls responsibility simply being slaves?
One of the rewards for progress in the system is the attainment of responsibility. Thus a large amount of the caretaking around the building is actually done by higher phase people. They are not paid for this and therefore they have been called forced labourers. They do it, however, gladly and voluntarily. They know that the way to their return to the society involves doing the useful and thoughtful things that they have avoided doing for years. And this procedure is perfectly healthy and desirable. It contains, of course, a hazard; and the staff must be very careful regarding this problem. The higher phase people might conceivably attempt to offer their services to staff members for future considerations. This would be disastrous for the integrity of the programme. Or similarly, but even more dangerously, a staff member might request a higher phase person to undertake some task for his, the staff member's, personal advantage. No special privileges should ever be offered to a person as a reward for personal service to a staff member.
Of additional interest is the fact that the parents, who are regarded as part of the Straight community, are also asked to do various jobs. Thus when we were there there was a call for parents to lay carpets, paint walls and assist in many other ways. A great deal of car driving is contributed by the parents and, of course, parents who have children who have gained the privilege of returning home are required to accept the immense responsibility of being foster parents for newcomers. No one would hold, we dare say, that these parents have been turned into slaves. The participating children are involved in similar exhibitions of community support. The notion that any of these people have become some modern equivalent of the indentured servant is insupportable and absurd. This is a self-help programme and it is not surprising, therefore, that everybody helps.
Is the lack of government sponsorship noticeable at Straight?
Yes it is. Any government branch that we have ever seen has suffered, inevitably, sooner rather than later, from the dread effects of Parkinson's Law. Officials breed officials and there never seems to be any Malthusian end to it, especially if the field of work is in the social sciences. Straight is positively spartan and so it should remain. It asks at the parents meeting if any parent present can possibly supply a 40 foot hose. And it gets the hose. If the government ran Straight there would be an abundance of hoses of every possible calibre and length, a warehouse to store the hoses, a staff to guard, classify and dispense the hoses, and a pilot study to determine the utility of having so many hoses. But most importantly no parent would experience the small joy of being able to supply one perfectly necessary 40 foot hose.
Straight is exemplary in that it appears to do everything that it wants to do with great economy. For vast engineering projects the involvement of the government is essential; for endeavors in the field of social science the maintenance of the human scale is decidedly preferable.
Is Straight authoritarian?
Yes it is. At Straight there is a clearly defined chain of command that runs from the director all the way through to the newcomer. Every decision is made by the members at a certain level and confirmed by the decreasing number of members at the various higher levels. Straight is pyramidal in design. Most of the decisions are made at levels appropriate to the significance of the issue but certain matters must be approved by the director alone. And the utmost deference and respect is accorded the members of each higher level. This recognition of authority in this particular example of a meritocracy is an altogether novel experience for most of these young people and it is not harmful to them in any way. It must be remembered that their stay at Straight is of a limited duration and they are not condemned to an interminable life of unchanging status. They constantly progress upward through the pyramid and in a matter of months they are back at work or school. The programme is strict but it is eminently humane and fair; and this combination is one of the reasons for its success. Some comprehension of discipline is, after all, a useful attribute in one's future transactions with one's self and with the social world. No one is injured by the orderliness of Straight.
Should Straight accept grants?
Government grants, no, because this would probably entail incalculable amounts of government paperwork. Anything that leards to the facilitation of the growth of bureaucracy should be carefully avoided. it is lethal to morale and effectiveness.
Foundation grants, probably yes, because such organizations usually require far fewer bureaucratic satisfactions. Although it is not unfortunate that Straight is poor there is no doubt that a good deal of money is going to be required to construct, elsewhere, the sort of building that now exists in St. Petersburg. Public donations, fees from the participants, and plenty of free hoses, yes, but there may still be a need for occasional large inputs of money for capital building purposes. And, in particular, there is a need for extra money to supply bursaries for children whose parents simply do not have the necessary funds to pay for admission. Straight does some of this now, but there is a need for much more of it.
Is the programme anti-intellectual?
The children at Straight do not engage in the sort of intellectual pursuits that might be found at a school or university. They do not, for that matter, even read books or watch television programmes devoted to ideas. They are not there for the purpose of expanding their knowledge of intellectual affairs. They are there, nevertheless, to exercise their intelligences. The programme is extremely rational but it is also very simple and direct. It is pragmatic and it honours clear-headedness. In this sense it is basic training for any intellectual pursuit in the future.
Is Straight biased in favour of white children?
The workers at Straight are acutely aware of the fact that nearly all of their children have been from the white middle class. This is clearly not their desire but they are certain to be criticized for this in the future. An even greater effort must obviously be made to interest black parents and black children in the programme at Straight. There have been a few black children at Straight in the past but during the time we were in St. Petersburg there was not a single one. A more representative population is certain to be achieved in time because the desire is clearly there; but in the meantime greater attempts must be made to improve the credibility of Straight in the black community.
It was agreeable to note that there were a fair number of Hispanic children and parents in the group; and we understood, furthermore, that there was a wide range of incomes throughout the entire group. The plan, already in existence, whereby children from less affluent families are assisted is, as we have noted previously, only to be encouraged. Drug affliction is not class specific; Straight must not be either.
Does Straight violate children's rights?
We did not perceive this as being the case. People under 18 are admitted because their parents are fully supportive of this action. The children themselves, being children, are not mature and they had managed to interrupt their lives very seriously through their use of drugs. We do not see how it would benefit these children for them to be permitted to pursue their dangerous careers as drug users without some parentally sanctioned intervention. It does not do any damage to these children to be admitted to Straight for a period of a few weeks or months; and after that they are either discharged because they are utterly unwilling to participate or they recognize that the programme might even help them, and they decide to stay on.
On admission they do not have much desire to interrupt their daily use of drugs, but it seems to us that it is a gross perversion of the humane impulse to hold that their civil right to ruin themselves as adolescents should be honoured over their distressed parents right to insist that they be given a decent opportunity to live full and happy lives for many years to come. The same principle applies to the children who are 18 or a very few years older. They can leave after a certain number of limited delays; but they are not hurt by being in this drug free environment for a few weeks. The drugged state is, in fact, more injurious than is the endurance of a short, discontented stay at Straight. This programme gives them a chance to get detoxified in a receptive and non-threatening society of their peers. If they are utterly recalcitrant and feel they must return to the use of drugs then, with regret, they are discharged.
It should be noted here that every child under the age of 18 is dealt with, in an intake interview, by two higher phase people who have had similar experiences as drug users. All of the rules and practices are described; and in every case the newcomer signs a paper that indicates his agreement to stay for 14 days. After 14 days have passed most children are so drug free and so satisfied with the goals of the programme that they decide to continue through the rest of the phases. Children over 18 similarly sign themselves in and if they refuse to do so they are not admitted. This procedure is perfectly just, and it is not violative of anybody's rights.
Is there any protection against mental breakdown?
In any population there are always some people who suffer from diverse psychiatric illnesses. In a group of confirmed drug users the incidence of illness is even higher. Furthermore it has often been noticed that the daily use of drugs can screen an underlying illness. The drug culture is highly tolerant of aberrant modes of thinking, feeling and acting, and a person may exist in such a community for some time before he is identified as having not just a drug problem but a psychiatric disturbance. For these reasons it was gratifying to learn that a fully accredited psychiatrist was associated with Straight and that anyone who showed signs of an emotional disturbance that was not clearly referable to drug use was seen by this person. Straight is not equipped to deal with clinical illness. It is not a hospital; and therefore it is essential that people who are in need of hospitalization should be referred to such facilities.
Apart from psychiatric assistance Straight also has close associations with other medical people. Straight is primarily a self-help organization but it is not so unwise as to reject the help of professionals.
The medical support at St. Petersburg was excellent. Any branch in another city should establish from the beginning a similar network of local professionals.
Conclusion
In conclusion we would like to make several further observations. It is true that Straight does not have any accurate data indicating the ultimate success of its programme. Large numbers of graduates are known to be free of drugs but acceptable statistical analyses are not available. It is worth noting, however, that in our experience a significant number of people who are exposed to guidance of some kind but who relapse subsequently actually do remember a great deal of what they learned; and they make use of this knowledge at a later date when they are finally ready to benefit from it. The point here is that even short range failures may have been aided in many ways.
And another point: in the schools today there is a widespread acceptance of drug use as a natural and desirable mode of being in the world. The peer pressure urging this style is intense and it is very difficult for a child to resist it and remain a part of the group. One of the most important contributions that Straight might make, therefore, is the offer of strong support to those children who are really disinclined to use drugs but who are constantly urged to do so by their friends. In this sense Straight, through its literature and through its example, would serve to strengthen the determination of a great many children who might never have any direct association with it.
Straight seemed to us to be phenomenal. We have been involved in drug programmes, we have seen far more of them, and we have read about most of them; but we have never seen a programme that seemed so intelligently designed to bring about success in this very difficult field.
At the end of his excellent book, Gone Way Down, Miller Newton makes several observations concerning the elements that must be gathered together if a drug treatment programme is to be successful. In brief these are:
- In choosing a programme for the teenager, make sure that it takes an abstinence position as necessary for recovery.
- A successful programme is able to keep the child in a drug free environment.
- Those who have the problem can best be helped by others who have the problem and are recovering.
- Good programmes involve the total family, parents and siblings, in treatment from the beginning.
- Effective programmes also take a strong position that a person has to make the decision to help himself.
- Recovery requires a strong and structured approach.
- The programme should reintegrate the teenager back into his family, school and other social activities.
- Becoming and remaining drug free involves changing one's thinking, feeling and behaviour. Cognitive and/or rational therapy seems to be most effective in this kind of self change.
We agree fully that these eight criteria are crucial elements in any really serious programme. Straight is serious and Straight incorporates all of them. Straight, we are inclined to suspect, is going to be recognized, eventually, as a national resource.
<signature>
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Andrew I. Malcolm, M.D.,
F.R.C.P.(C), D.A.B.P. & N.
<signature>
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Barbara E. Malcolm, B.A.
Toronto, September 5, 1981.
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Oh wow, you could fertilize a lot of corn with that one.
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There were two other docs in that pdf (http://http://survivingstraightinc.com/FloridaGovernmentDocuments/StraightInvestigations/Examination-of-Straight-Inc-by-Andrew-Malcolm-to-Drug-Tsar-Carlton-Turner-1982_Combine_Combine.pdf) which contains Dr. Andrew Malcolm's Sept. 1981 "An Examination of STRAIGHT INCORPORATED (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36865&p=399425#p399331)." This first one appears to be a follow-up communiqué from Dr. Malcolm summarizing that report on his professional stationery:
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(date stamp: RECEIVED JAN 5 1982)
Andrew I. Malcolm, M.D., F.R.C.P.(C)
55 Queen Street East, Suite 1402
366-1083 - Toronto M5C 1R5 - 481-7983
December 26, 1981
Mr. James E. Hartz
Executive Director
Straight, Inc.
P. O. Box 40052
St. Petersburg, Florida 33743
U. S. A.
Dear Mr. Hartz,
Last August my wife and I spent six days at Straight in St. Petersburg. This consultation was a most rewarding and re-assuring experience because we found that, in many ways, Straight was remarkable.
Although we were familiar with many kinds of drug programmes for adolescents we had never before seen a programme that satisfied all of the criteria that seemed to us to be essential for success.
Straight is strictly drug free and it emphasizes, in a most positive way, the advantages of the drug free state. It is a programme that encourages the active participation of not only the young people but also their parents. It encourages self reliance and personal responsibility, and its main object is to help adolescents to return to the community in a drug free state, and armed with a revived interest in their families and in the crucial necessity of making the fullest use of their own natural abilities.
Straight encourages rational thought. The programme is carefully designed to check any evolution in the direction of irrational cultism; and it was quite clear to us that the adolescents were strongly encouraged to exercise their minds. They were not caused to become dependent on the programme; they were stimulated to become dependent on themselves as free citizens of a democratic society. Before we went to St. Petersburg we learned that Straight had been criticized on the grounds that it made use of brainwashing techniques. We examined this issue carefully and our fuller opinion is set forth in our report. Our conclusion, however, was that to use this word in describing the programme at Straight would be absurd. Straight simply does not engage in brainwashing.
In our opinion Straight satisfies every one of the essential requirements of the ideal treatment approach for adolescent drug users, a population that is, incidentally, very resistant to treatment. If a young person is to be motivated to break free of the burden of drug affliction he would have a better chance at Straight than he would have at any other programme on the Continent that we have either seen or are otherwise familiar with.
And Straight goes about doing its vitally important work without any government support. This, too, is extraordinary, admirable and necessary. Its autonomy is an important element in the maintenance of its simplicity and effectiveness.
As we have said elsewhere we feel very strongly that Straight must rely on the fees paid by the parents for the day to day running of its individual branches. There is a great need, however, for the establishment of new branches, and this will clearly involve the expenditure of amounts of money that could never be accumulated from fees alone. Support for such expansions should be derived from foundations and corporations that have come to recognize that Straight is unique, responsible, well controlled and extraordinarily effective.
And we have no doubt that you are going to be hard pressed by distraught people in every part of the country when the word gets around that you are doing something that is not being done with such downright good sense anywhere else. These people are going to importune you to establish satellites; but two factors will inhibit any rapid expansion: you must have time to carefully select and train the satellite staffs, and you must have money. We know you can deal with the first of these because you have proven this in both Sarasota and Atlanta. And we suspect that money is going to be forthcoming, from diverse sources, for a programme as enlightened and as nationally necessary as is that of Straight.
We wish you much success in all your endeavours. We know you deserve the strongest support.
Yours sincerely,
<signature>
Andrew I. Malcolm, M.D.
F.R.C.P.(C), D.A.B.P. & N.
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I read that testimony, may have it in my computer...
You can call him though if you google the association of secondary school principles they have an 800 number...
He's a good guy, just remembers it differently...I talked to him a couple months ago
When you say "He's a good guy" what do you mean? I'm curious about what he said as I wore out my welcome with him back in 2005 or so. I figured he'd get on board but he completely distanced himself from our efforts at the time, so now that you're saying you talked to him a couple months ago, it's encouraging an intense curiosity. What did he say?
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This is an excerpt from a letter by a Straight-supporting parent to the president of CBS complaining about the depiction of Straight on the investigative journalism program, 60 Minutes: (italics are added for emphasis)
"The child not only
gets the opportunity to get its life back, but also the child gets its family
back"
Note that the parent does not use the adjective "their" when referring to the horrible druggie beast hellspawn, but instead uses the term "it" when referring to children that have been placed in Straight. To me, this may be a Freudian slip, one that is indicative of the objectification of their own children that Straight parents demonstrated, time and time again.
A very telling insight into the mind set of the program supporter can be gleaned from this one sentence, and the adjective twice used to describe the abuse victim in question.
KInda like "It puts the lotion on its skin,it does this whenever its told or it gets the hose again" :rofl:
Yeah I read that letter too. Referring to children as "it". To me, that letter proves how deep the washing really was. What kind of person refers to other human beings as "it". Fuckin Josef Mengele type shit. Really sick stuff.
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I wonder just WHO PAID for these glowing accolades ? Follow the fucking money,says I. I didnt think that Jim Hartz was still at str8 in 81? am I missremembering, I thought he left before Miller Newtons regime began? somethin' aint right here.
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Yeah ,thinking back on it i think that by the time the gandy blvd building opened he had gone. Iremember that Bill Oliver character too. If memory serves he had something to do with a miltary "detox" or something similar before his involvement. He came into the picture about the same time as Gandy blvd opened up. It would be interesting to find out more about that character as well. He seemed hinkey to me even back then. There was alot of hinkey goin on in those days.They were tryin to open sarasota up about this time also. There was "talk" of ohio,as well.
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For many years now.
See this:
http://thestraights.net/articles/elan.htm (http://thestraights.net/articles/elan.htm)
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I wonder just WHO PAID for these glowing accolades ? Follow the fucking money,says I. I didnt think that Jim Hartz was still at str8 in 81? am I missremembering, I thought he left before Miller Newtons regime began? somethin' aint right here.
Newspaper reports place Hartz at Straight at least through the summer of 1981. I believe he and Miller Newton overlapped for a period of time (different job titles at the time).
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I don't have time today to look but I think there was some definite reason for Hartz's leaving, like a state investigation or something. I can't remember though. I think there is something that happened but it's a vague memory I'll read through there too and see if I can find mention of it.
There was some hubbub in the newspapers during the summer of 1981 in which charges of "brainwashing" were aired. I kinda doubt, however, that this was sufficient to cause or encourage Jim Hartz's exit. Probably this to-do was in addition to the investigation that you refer to, Dragonfly?
Nevertheless, fwiw, this not necessarily having to do with James Hartz per se, it occurred to me that it's possible that that summer 1981 news coverage may have been instrumental in or, at least, supportive of the solicitation of Andrew Malcolm's "expert analysis" of Straight, "An Examination of STRAIGHT INCORPORATED (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36865&p=399560#p399331)" (see above), which allegedly took place over the course of six days in August, 1981 (report dated Sept. 5, 1981).
That report, as well as the follow-up letter (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36865&p=399658#p399425) to Jim Hartz dated Dec. 26, 1981, did place some focus on the issue of "brainwashing," and even made reference to those criticisms having been raised previously. Emphases added in the following quotes:
From the report:
Before we went to St. Petersburg we spoke to Robert L. Dupont, M.D., who had himself seen the programme in action and expressed much interest in it. Dr. Dupont pointed out, however, that there were certain aspects of the programme that had been criticized in the past, and he felt that an appraisal of these elements was especially needed.[/list]
Again, from the report, a bit further in:
We had the distinct impression that it was because of criticism from various quarters asserting that the Straight programme brainwashed the participants that we were consulted in the first place.[/list]
From the follow-up letter:
Before we went to St. Petersburg we learned that Straight had been criticized on the grounds that it made use of brainwashing techniques. We examined this issue carefully and our fuller opinion is set forth in our report.[/list][/list]
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There was some hubbub in the newspapers during the summer of 1981 in which charges of "brainwashing" were aired.
Here's that hubbub which, again, to my admittedly somewhat removed perspective, probably bore little or no influence on Jim Hartz'z exit. It's just that I happen to have it ready in the queue.
The coverage comprised of a small collection of articles by St. Petersburg Times reporter Milo Geyelin, spanning two consecutive days, and started off with the top story in the Times 'City and State' section.
Caption for an accompanying illustration reads:
During their first weeks at Straight, boys are held by their belt loops as they are escorted around the premises. Girls are taken by their hands.[/list]
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St. Petersburg Times
Monday, July 6, 1981
Growing Straight Inc. remains controversial (http://http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YZlSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=EXsDAAAAIBAJ&dq=james-hartz&pg=6464%2C5135431)
The teen-age drug-abuse therapy program, say some parents and former clients, is something close to divine salvation; others say it borders on brainwashing
• Straight Inc., a controversial drug-abuse treatment program for teen-agers, is approaching its fifth anniversary of operation in Pinellas County. This story, the first of two parts, examines Straight's method of therapy. •
By MILO GEYELIN
St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer
Almost every weekday morning it's the same.
As commuters on the way to work cruise by a squat, sand-colored concrete buillding at 3001 Gandy Blvd., a chorus of teen-age voices rises from somewhere inside. the voices all sing the same song — a song that, like it or not, will set the tone for the rest of the day:
I'm here at Straight, feeling great;
From nine to nine, I'm feeling fine.[/list]
Nobody inside will be going anywhere for a while.
Straight Inc., a drug rehabilitation center for teen-agers, will soon be in its sixth year of operation in Pinellas County. With a new branch successfully openend in Sarasota last fall, another expected in to open in Atlanta this summer and still more being considered in Cincinnati and Washington, D.C., the program is attracting a national following.
But its philosophy — that if peer pressure can get kids into trouble with drugs, peer pressure can get them "straight" — remains controversial.
STRAIGHT CALLS its therapy "re-acculturation" — the process of "relearning the values, rules and behavior of the main culture."
In the opinion of some parents and former clients, the therapy program is something close to divine salvation. Other parents and former clients say it borders on brainwashing.
Straight's therapy is based on the theory that teenagers who use drugs — most commonly marijuana and alcohol — can't be helped unless they are totally removed from the influences that encourage them to use drugs, says Straight Administrative Director Miller Newton.
Conventional counseling by psychologists or psychiatrists doesn't work with kids on drugs, Newton says, because "you cannot isolate the kid from the peer pressure that has (use of drugs) implicit in it." the way teenage drug users dress, the way they talk, the music they like, their values — all these carry a message that Straight contends is unconventional, powerful and destructive.
As Newton puts it, "The 'do drugs' message is so strong that you just can't isolate the kid (from it)."
At Straight, the approach is to do just that.
Getting 'straight'
Teenagers enter Straight cut off from their friends and families. They have no rights. Boys are held by their belt loops as they are escorted around the premises during their first weeks at the program; girls are taken by their hands. Routine activities are closely controlled: Clients can drink water and go to the bathroom only twice a day, shower at specified times and for specified periods, brush their teeth and comb their hair for only a certain number of strokes and talk only when called upon.
Rights to talk to parents, read books and watch television are taken away, then "earned" back as teen-agers pass through five progressive phases of treatment.
The first phase involves developing "self," says Newton. It means being "honest" about one's past as a "druggie." While teen-agers are in this phase of the program, they live with other clients' families until they have earned the right to "come home."
IN THE SECOND phase, the teen-agers can live at home and commute daily. In the third phase, they can attend school by day and Straight at night and on weekends. The fourth phase stresses developing friendships and the fifth phase — the "sharing stage" — is when the client may become a peer counselor and , ultimately, leave the program.
Clients who are almost "straight" assist about a dozen young junior and senior paid staff members — all of them former clients — who make up the bulk of Straight's staff. There are five fulltime professionals on the staff and one clinical psychologist who shares his time between the St. Petersburg and the Sarasota branches.
"If you look at the whole process, what we do here is sort of force a regression," say Dr. William Giesz, the clinical psychologist. "That is, we go back to about the toddler age and teach toilet training in a somewhat esoteric way. The belt loop phenomenon is much like what a parent would do with a toddler. The relationship is obvious."
The day begins with the Straight sing-along and perhaps a recitation of self-improvement pledges known as "The Seven Steps." Then the teen-agers begin the first of three daily group therapy sessions called "raps." In a large, hot auditorium, seated in hard plastic chairs, boys and girls ages 12 to 18 face two staff members and embark on discussions that begin with broad themes, then narrow down to personal observations.
"ONE OF THE most delightful group sessions I attended was on the theme bulls---, different kinds of bulls---," Giesz says. "And the kids got into different kinds of bulls--- associated with drug use and then the kinds of things they see around them that are bulls--- and things that are going on in the group that are bulls---.
"There's a tendency in the group through any given session to relate to the past, then relate to where they are now — what the differences are, where they want to go in the future and what they're going to do about it," he says.
Motivation and honesty are encouraged. Suspected dishonesty and unwillingness to participate are attacked. Two former clients interviewed by The St. Petersburg Times said the rap sessions for most clients amounted to little more than phony confessionals where teen-agers "confessed" things they never did because such "honest" self-examination is seen as the only ticket out of the program.
"To please a counselor or to shut someone up from putting you down, you always had to tell a big, dramatic story," says former client Jeanine Wright, 18, who ran away from the program last spring after five months there. "Some of the things they talked about applied to me, but a lot of it didn't. Every time I tried to tell them about my past, they would sit me down and tell me I was being dishonest."
"PEOPLE WOULD lie through their ears to get 'better,' " recalls former client Michael Calabrese, 18, who ran away from the program last October after three months. "If you said things that were unpopular, it was disregarded, like that not very many of your friends were druggies or that you had a good job and were doing well. You were supposed to confess all kinds of bad stuff, and if you didn't, they figured you were lying."
But other former clients say the rap sessions cut close to the bone, forced them to examine themselves and, in the long run, developed their self-confidence to the point where they could refuse drugs.
Nancy Minton, 21, who left the program after a year and one month, says she is sure that "there were some younger kids in the program who did that (lied to get ahead)," but says that it was due to the drug environment they had just been yanked from. "Outside, you get just as much pressure from peers to do things wrong. I don't see what's wrong with using peer pressure to encourage someone to do something right."
Those who want to advance through the program must stand before the group at specially scheduled raps twice a week and announce that they feel ready to progress.
The request is discussed by the group, which then votes on it. A decision is made later the same day by the senior and executive staff, which rarely goes against the group vote. The decision is announced before the evening's "open meeting."
A family affair
At the open meetings, which parents are required to attend on a regular basis, teen-agers new to the program stand up before the packed audience and confess their drug use and what it did to them: the stealing, the sex, the hostility toward their parents and society. They talk about their feelings — mostly guilt — and how they will better themselves at Straight.
Family contact is limited to the tightly controlled open meetings until the teen-ager reaches the second phase and is allowed to return home. The teen-agers, boys separate from girls, sit on one side of the auditorium. Before the parents are led in, staff members tell them to sit up straight, tuck in their shirts, look neat and smile. As the parents are being led through the back of the auditorium, the children are singing another Straight sing-along:
I am straight, I can do anything ... anything.
I am strong; I am invincible ... invincible.
I am straight, I can do anything...[/list]
The parents applaud when the song ends. Between them and their children 20 feet away, two teen-age staff members sit on stools. The seating is planned so o parent can look directly across at his child. Eye contact between family members is forbidden.
After the teen-agers' confessions, a collection is taken from the parents.
THEN THE PARENTS speak to their children by microphone. Many simply say, "I love you... Talk to you later." Others admonish their children to work harder at getting "straight." Some talk about the pain and resentment they feel because of the way they were deceived and others say flatly that their children are unwelcome at home until they are "straight."
All through the open meeting, the names of those teenagers who have reached "second phase" and can go home for the duration of Straight's program are announced. Each time, the named youth jumps up, scrambles across his or her peers, races to the other side of the auditorium and leaps open-armed into a tearful embrace. The family hugs to thunderous applause — an emotional display made all the more powerful by the chilling confessions which began the meeting.
At the meeting's close, parents, clients and staff members join hands and sing a prayer. Then parents turn to those seated next to them and embrace.
The message is carefully orchestrated and powerful: Straight brings families — all families — together again. The parents seem relieved and grateful.
STRAIGHT DEMANDS an exhausting commitment from parents. All must attend a mandatory number of open meetings, even if it means commuting from out of state. After the open meetings, the parents must attend their own rap sessions where they learn about their child's involvement in the program, the ways of the "drug culture" and what to expect at home. The meetings last past midnight.
The entire program takes at least six months to complete, Newton says. The average stay is 10 to 11 months, though some clients have stayed in the program as long as two years. The cost, Straight says, ranges from $750 to $1,700 for the whole program, depending upon a family's ability to pay, plus $35 per month for food.
The fees make up 70 percent of Straight's $449,000 annual budget. The rest comes from donations (such as those made at the open meetings), says Straight Executive Director James Hartz. Straight will not turn away clients in need of help, no matter what their financial status, Hartz says.
But no one goes to Straight for free. " really don't know (how many poor clients there are at Straight)," Hartz says. "My philosophy is very simple: If you don't pay for something, that's about how much you value it."
Almost all the clients at Straight are white.
Who gets straight?
Since September 1976, when Straight opened, about 1,600 teen-agers have been enrolled. Roughly 600 have completed the program and only 300 of those — less than a fifth — have stayed completely away from drugs, Newton says.
Most of the teen-agers in the program are referred there by parents who already have children in the program or know others who do, says Newton. Some have been referred there by school officials, police and, in the past, the Juvenile Court.
But during the past two years, the Pinellas-Pasco Juvenile Court has virtually stopped referring youthful drug offenders to the Straight program. And judges say they never send them there merely at the request of parents.
"ALMOST NEVER do we court-order them into the program," says Judge Jack Page. Page says he hasn't ordered a juvenile into Straight since reports surfaced about three years ago that Straight was keeping clients against their will. Though Page thinks the program has been very successful with some clients, he chooses Operation PAR (Parental Awareness and Responsibility) because that program does not take children away from their families.
"It (the PAR program) is a shorter program and a little more normal," Page says. A stay at Straight can involve more than a jail sentence for the original drug-related offense that brings the teen-ager into court, he says. "The PAR program is more in keeping with the length of time and degree of involvement you'll find for community control." Page says.
"Straight is highly intensive, and involves the entire family, more time and more money (than PAR) ... The kids go under a lot of pressure, and I'm not the one to put them under that pressure."
There was a time when Judge Robert Michael ordered teen-agers into Straight as a matter of normal disposition, he says. But now he is reluctant to order juveniles into the program, even for drug offenses.
I'M SURE THAT when parents get desperate, they welcome any program that will help their kids. But for those who don't need it (the kind of intense program Straight offers), I don't think you should be putting them there just to put them in the program," he said.
Judge Michael also sends most of his juvenile drug offenders to PAR. He has not ordered a child into Straight in almost a year.
Controversy remains
Troubles at Straight first surfaced in December 1977, after six directors resigned to protest management and treatment techniques at the program. One director accused the nonprofit corporation of "misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance." The complaints, which centered around handling of money and mistreatment of clients, were similar to those lodged against Straight's predecessor, The Seed.
The Seed was disbanded in October 1975 amid reports that its peer-pressure tactics subjected teen-agers to intense mental and physical abuse. In 1974, a federal report had likened treatment methods used by The Seed "to highly refined brainwashing techniques employed by the North Koreans during the 1950s."
Most of Straight's creators, its board of directors and staff members came directly from The Seed. But Straight, its supporters said at the time, was going to be different. The emphasis at Straight's rap sessions would be on creating a positive environment of "trust, care, honesty and sincerity."
But in February 1978, reports arose alleging coercive tactics at the program. Former counselors alleged that a youth was threatened with a cocked handgun and others were forcibly detained or threatened with fake documents "signed by the police department." Treatment plans were allegedly falsified and, in one instance, former counselors claimed a youth was slapped repeatedly by an executive staff member.
A THREE-MONTH criminal investigation conducted by the Pinellas-Pasco Attorney's office concluded that some of the allegations were true but there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges.
Now, three years later, Straight's troubles are still not over. In its inspection of the program in March, the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS) found that Straight was not following state rules on client treatment and record-keeping.
The HRS report indicated that several clients picked at random for interviews said high-level staff members threatened them with court orders which, they were told, would either force them into the Straight program or a mental institution if they did not sign themselves in voluntarily. HRS also said no clients interviewed knew of any process through which they could leave the program.
Clients told HRS officials that doors and windows at the homes where they live during the initial phase were locked from the outside so they could not leave. Personal files such as medical histories, treatment plans and psycho-social evaluations were found to be incomplete or inadequately maintained, and Straight was unable to document a training program for its staff.
CONTACTED AFTER the HRS report was released, Straight Executive Director Hartz said he felt "there are some inaccuracies" in the report but declined to discuss any specifics. "We fully wish to comply with state regulations and that is our intent," he said. (A more recent HRS inspection of Straight was conducted in June and Straight's license was renewed for one year. But HRS officials declined to discuss the specific evaluations until a written report is completed.)
Despite its difficulties, Straight has attracted powerful national and local support. Robert DuPont, the founding director of the National Institute for Drug Abuse, last December addressed a banquet of Straight supporters in Tampa and called Straight one of the best drug-abuse treatment centers in the country — a model for others.
The program enjoys strong local support from such powerful names as shopping center developer Mel Sembler, former radio and television station owner Sam G. Rahall and longtime Pinellas developer Joseph Zappala. All three sit on the program's board of directors.
Nonetheless, former clients continue to complain bitterly about the way Straight inducted them into its program. And Straight's definition of drug abuse appears to be highly subjective, yet more dogmatic, than that used by others in the field.
When is drug use drug abuse?
At Straight, any use of drugs is considered to be a problem. "If you talked to us about not taking kids who use recreational drugs because it's not dangerous, I would probably go through the roof as an individual and a professional because I would not want that attributed to me or the program," says Newton.
"I can only give you my opinion," says Hartz. "The program doesn't have a written policy (on who is a drug abuser). To me, it's like pregnancy: Either you 'tis or you 'taint.
"...A 14-year-old who did alcohol and pot and never got arrested, never skipped school — that person in our opinion needs to work through his or her relationship to that drug just as much as the person who is 16 and who was out B and E'ing (breaking and entering), ripping off and so on and so forth."
TRYING TO DEFINE drug abuse, says Hartz, who has a bachelor's degree and master's degree in psychology, is "like trying to define schizophrenia. You can't say it's the difference between two and three. It's a subjective type of judgment based upon the chemical dependency model we use here ... You learn to identify the problem, but ... it's not like going out and reading a thermometer ... the answer is a combination of experience, your knowledge base and the fact that we have some literature to review on. And our opinions."
The "chemical dependency model" used at Straight had been adapted by Straight's administrative director, Newton, from a study on adult alcoholism. It lumps all drug use and its effects into one category — a progressive and ultimately fatal "disease of the feelings."
Before joining Straight, Newton, an ordained minister who graduated from Princeton University, was clerk of the Circuit Court in Pasco County, an unsuccessful 1976 candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives and former director of the Florida Alcohol Coalition.
"OUR POSITION is this," says Newton: "Whether we take a kid into the program or not is determined in our judgment by whether the child and the family can handle stopping the (drug) use themselves or whether they need the help of an intensive, therapeutic program to isolate the kid from the peer influence — the availability of drugs..."
That determination is made on the basis of reports from parents, school officials, police records, the reputation a teen-ager may have with friends and relatives already in the program and the results of a thorough interview known as "intake," to which teen-agers are usually taken by their parents.
It is this intake procedure that some former clients criticize most severely. They say that for hours, they were grilled, told they were deviant, worthless human beings and threatened with court orders that would put them in the program and keep them there.
Eventually, they said, they believed it. So they signed themselves in.
NEWTON DENIES any threats of court orders and scoffs at the possibility that some of Straight's clients may have been bullied into the program. "Nobody who has good self-esteem will let it plummet because somebody talks to you about your behavior for four, six, 10, 30 hours ... We've dealt with 1,600 kids here now, so we've put together a very coherent pattern that is fail-safe."
Other mental health professionals and experts involved in treating drug abusers agree that deciding to send a child to a program like Straight depends on what you consider a drug problem to be. Most distinguish between casual, weekend or "recreational" use of drugs and drug dependency.
David Milchan, a 21-year veteran of the St. Petersburg Police Department who as head of the Youth Services Devision frequently referred families to Straight, distinguishes between heavy use of drugs like marijuana and beer and recreational use.
A heavy marijuana user would be "a child using marijuana on a regular basis, a child who says, 'I have to get high in order to function at school or with (my) family,' " says Milchan. He sat on Straight's advisory board until February 1980, when he resigned from the St. Petersburg Police Department to go work as a juvenile specialist at HRS. He is now police chief of St. Petersburg Beach.
OPERATION PAR also makes a distinction between casual use of drugs like beer and marijuana and abuse of those drugs, says Associate Executive Director Arnold Andrews. For a teen-ager to be admitted to PAR, problems with police, one's family or school must be directly related to drug use, Andrews says.
At PAR, which operates as an outpatient counseling clinic where clients and families come for scheduled appointments and leave, treatment is handled by staff members who have at least two years of college training in counseling.
"They (Straight) deal with while middle- and upper-middle-class kids," says Andrews. "PAR kids are more lower-class, indigent kids."
"People start taking drugs for all different sorts of reasons," says Dr. Anthony Reading, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of South Florida. "There is some correlation to underlying, preceding emotional problems."
Growing up and being a teen-ager involves all sorts of complex issues — stress, tensions, anxieties, says Dr. Reading. "It's a reasonable assumption that people in general don't get involved or overinvolved with drugs unless they have some kind of emotional problem.
"PROGRAMS LIKE Straight appeal to parents because they don't want to accept responsibility for their children's (drug) problem. Parents can get over-attracted to the program because of the fear a parent has of someone saying, 'You've been a bad parent.' "
In other words, Straight seems to appeal because its philosophy says that family problems stem from the drug use — not the other way around.
"You need to understand that drug use is a disease initiated by personal choice in response to peer pressure," says Newton in an unpublished treatise on drug abuse. "They (the parents) did not cause their child to use drugs."
The truth is, Dr. Reading adds, "that in dealing with teen-agers, other teen-agers can be very, very effective in changing their behavior ... Peer pressure can be very supportive in getting them out and changing them."
Parents whose children have had successful experiences at Straight agree.
"STRAIGHT IS the only drug program providing the services it does for the price," says Charlie Pittman, whose son Winston went into the program when he wa 15 and is now training to become a staff member. "The price is cheap. You don't get that kind of cooperation unless you get people who really want to help themselves and their kids ... Straight isn't for everybody. Straight only works if the family wants it to work."
Says another parent, "It's not a perfect program, but it's the best game in town. You can say what you want about it, but it does work."
Next: Straight's critics and supporters recall their experiences with the program.
# # #
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Profile (http://http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YZlSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=EXsDAAAAIBAJ&dq=james-hartz&pg=6771%2C5168417) of St. Petersburg Times staff writer Milo Geyelin (his brief bio is positioned below the above article (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36865&p=399902#p399899); includes headshot):
Staff writer Milo Geyelin spent several weeks interviewing former Straight clients, parents, staff members and numerous authorities in law enforcement, psychiatry and drug abuse to compile this report. Recently, he also spent a day at Straight observing the treatment program. Geyelin, 26, has been on the staff of
The St. Petersburg Times since October 1979. He was born in Washington, D.C. and attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he majored in history and political science and graduated with distinction in December 1978. Since joining The Times, Geyelin has worked as a general assignment reporter and covered city government and police.[/list]
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Looks like Milo might work for the Wall St. Journal...I'll try to email him on Monday and see if he'd be interested in a follow up story...
That's a great idea!
Incidentally, I'm still getting the rest of this set ready to post, but I should also hasten to add (and which I didn't discover 'till after I had already transcribed a fair amount of it) that this particular collection of coverage by Milo Geyelin of the St. Petersburg Times from 6-7 July 1981 can also be accessed on Surviving Straight Inc.'s page for Newspaper/Magazine Articles (http://http://www.survivingstraightinc.com/newspaper__magazine_articles_covering_straight_inc_1976-1993/st_petersburgtampa_fl_-_1976_-_1993). Scroll down for pdf links under the year 1981.
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Onwards... Here's the second article, appearing the next day:
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St. Petersburg Times
Tuesday, July 7, 1981
'Tough Love' makes Straight successful, 2 graduates say... (http://http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YplSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=EXsDAAAAIBAJ&dq=james-hartz&pg=4002%2C5690500)
Straight Inc., a controversial drug-abuse treatment program for teen-agers, is approaching its fifth anniversary of operation in Pinellas County. These stories, the second of a two-part series on Straight, recount experiences of former Straight clients.
By MILO GEYELIN
St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer
Winston Pittman — tanned, articulate and as wholesome-looking as a model in a breakfast commercial — remembers that his life used to be a lot different.
There was a time, says the 19-year-old St. Petersburg Junior College student, when the only thing that really seemed to matter in life was drugs: where to find them, how to get them and where to find more.
He started at age 13, concentrating mostly on marijuana and beer, he says. Then, over the course of two years, he tried amphetamines, LSD, hashish and cocaine. When those drugs were not available, Winston, the son of a successful financial advisre, turned to the only high there was — paint thinner. He inhaled it.
BUT ALL OF that has changed now, and the reason, says Winston, was Straight Inc. Winston spent one year and nine months there. He says it turned his life around.
Winston and another Straight graduate spoke at length with The St. Petersburg Times about how they became involved with drugs, their experiences with Straight and why they think the program works.
Both number among the roughly 800 (up from the 600 previously reported by Straight Inc.) who have successfully completed the Straight program, says Administrative Director Miller Newton. Newton, who does not have any exact figures, estimates that based on the numbers of teens who have completed the program, roughly two-thirds of the teen-agers and families who have been involved in Straight look back on it favorably.
Winston's relationship with his parents began to slip before he became involved with drugs, he says, but drugs made the problem worse.
"I'D SAY there was really no relationship there (with his parents) at all," he says now. "We really never talked or communicated ... I always thought my parents didn't know as much as I did about anything. I didn't like my Dad's authority. Most of the time we did talk, it was mostly arguments.
"I didn't have any direction — most 13-year-olds don't," he says. "But after I started drugs, I never looked into the future or what I was going to do with my life."
The reason, he says was peer pressure. "I felt inadequate around my friends, and when I saw they were starting to sue drugs, it was kind of the thing to do. I felt like maybe if I started smoking pot ... I figured I'd get up with them, I'd be more on their level."
Mrs. Pittman could see the change in her son, she says. "When I found out Winston was smoking pot, I felt, well, he's experimenting. It's a phase, he'll go through it ... But what I saw it do with my brothers and sisters and friends — they went through hell during those four or five years while the kids were doing pot, wrecking the car, truancy from school, all kinds of things ... He hadn't gotten to that. He cloistered himself off in his room and his grades were dropping ..."
That pattern is much like 21-year-old Nancy Minton's, who was in the Straight program for a year and one month. Nancy started taking drugs after her parents divorced when she was 14. She, her sister, her brother and her mother moved into a small Pinellas Park subdivision where drug use among teen-agers was popular. Her brother's friends took drugs, so Nancy started, too. "I think it was mostly for friends that I did it," she says. "I wanted to do something to get into the crowd."
THREE YEARS later, Nancy says, she was drinking hard liquor, smoking marijuana, taking amphetamines, barbituates, hashish and opium regularly. Once she tried cocaine. Another time, she says, she tried morphine.
Her grades and family life also began to deteriorate, she says. She started staying out late at night, vandalizing and "stealing for kicks."
Both Winston and Nancy were signed into the program by their parents. Neither went willingly. That was before a state law was passed that requires persons in drug-abuse programs to enter them voluntarily.
"When I first got there, there was no way ... I couldn't believe I was there," says Winston, who ran away from Straight twice, only to be returned by his parents.
Looking back on it now, though, both Winston and Nancy agree that the best thing about Straight was the closeness, a kind of "tough love" that they say encourages frank, gloves-off counseling from peers about the way they are handling themselves in the large, group "rap" sessions. It is during the raps that the teen-agers are expected to tell the group about their past offenses, how they were affected by them and how they will better themselves in the future.
"TOUGH LOVE is giving a person really what he needs, even if he doesn't want it," says Winston. "That's not always telling the person where they're at ... and showing them that you're angry ... It's sometimes easier using empathy and trying to relate to the person, or something like that."
The raps, broken up into morning, afternoon and evening sessions, make up the bulk of the "teen-agers helping teen-agers" therapy at Straight. How teen-agers express themselves during the raps is the basis by which their progress is judged by the other teen-agers and, ultimately, what determines when they are ready to leave Straight.
Progress is marked by advancement through a series of five phases — each of which allows the teen-ager more freedom — that lead to completion of the program. Straight Administrative Director Miller Newton says the first phase usually lasts three to four weeks; the second lasts two to three weeks; the third lasts four to six weeks; the fourth is at least a month long and the fifth phase lasts one to three months. Newton says the average length of total involvement in the program is about 11 1/2 months.
Nancy remembers standing before the group and getting "put down" for being dishonest. The difference with her was that she really was being dishonest, she says now. "Sure. I did that, too (lied to score points with the group). I stood up and said, 'Hey, I think I'm grand and glorious and really don't think I need to be here.' "
BUT OTHER clients at Straight who knew her before she came to the program "would turn around and be honest with me ... and say, 'What about this? Do you remember this that you did?'...It's a hard thing to face up to when you get caught up in your own mess," Nancy says.
"For me, it was super hard because I was so used to having these quick little comebacks, fast little things to get people off the subject, but here (at Straight) if you do that kind of stuff, you get nailed. The whole group would be silent and somebody would say this thing to you, and you would just stop. You can't go anywhere. You have to sit there and listen.
"There were times when people would say things that weren't true, and I'd know that within myself. But that's where applying what you learn in the program comes in...If it doesn't apply you don't use. If it does apply and it hits home and you know it, that's where you can do some changing ..."
Winston and Nancy are grateful to Straight. "I had feelings, but before (going to Straight) I would always suppress them and push them down," says Winston, who wants to study psychology at St. Petersburg Junior College. "When I did finish the program, I was able to express my feelings. I had a lot more confidence in myself, a lot more self-esteem, which I never had."
"I FEEL like it's a 180-degree turnaround," says Nancy. "I'm going somewhere. I'm going to school. I'm making steps. I'm doing something for myself...I've got the confidence to go on now. It's totally different."
Winston would like major in psychology at a university when he finishes junior college. After that, he hopes to get accepted in a staff position at Straight. Nancy will graduate from St. Petersburg Junior College this fall. For the past three years, since leaving Straight, she has worked at Montgomery Ward. She lives with her mother now and has recently become interested in religion, she says. Eventually, she would like to work with kids before they become vulnerable to drug abuse, she says.
The kind of people whom Straight can't help, says Winston, are those "who don't feel they have any problems...the type of people who aren't committed to helping themselves, the type of people who don't make decisions...Further on the line, they're eventually going to have to take responsibility for their own lives or they're going to end up in jail — or another program."
Straight involves more than just drugs, says Nancy. The program changes attitudes...It really helps change your attitudes, your beliefs. It really lets you check inside yourself and say, 'Hey, what's best for me?' and to stop worrying about the other guy. I think anybody can use it."
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And the third one... Caption for an illustration accompanying this article:
Michael Calabrese says he was questioned for nine hours in a small room. St. Petersburg Times — JOE TONELLI[/list]
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St. Petersburg Times
Tuesday, July 7, 1981
...another youth tells of threats and intimidation (http://http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YplSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=EXsDAAAAIBAJ&dq=james-hartz&pg=4002%2C5690500)
By MILO GEYELIN
St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer
On a sunny summer morning last July, 17-year-old Michael Calabrese and his mother walked in through the front door of Straight Inc.
They thought they were there, they say, to talk to Straight staff members about Michael's younger brother, who was being treated at Straight for drug abuse. An administrative assistant at Straight had written Michael's father in Kissimmee to say it was "an important part of (the younger brother's) program to firmly establish the relationship to other members of the family."
But Michael says he didn't talk much about his brother that day.
INSTEAD, HE SAYS, he was taken to a room with Straight staff members, where he was questioned about himself for nine hours.
And his mother says that by the time she saw him again late that afternoon, she found him crumpled in a chair in a small, brightly lit room.
He was crying.
That day, after he says he was threatened with a court order that would keep him in Straight for two years, Michael signed himself in "voluntarily." Florida law requires that clients in drug treatment programs sign themselves in voluntarily — although they can be required to do so by court order — but Straight does not have the legal authority to produce court orders. No drug program does.
Straight Executive Director James Hartz and Administrative Director Miller Newton have declined to discuss the specifics of Michael's or any other client's case. Michael and another former client have signed notarized consent forms authorizing Straight to discuss their treatment, but Hartz and Newton still refuse. However, Newton, who was at Straight the day Michael signed himself in, denies that the tee-ager was threatened with a court order.
Michael's charge that he was threatened with a court order by adult staff member at Straight is not isolated. A recent Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS) monitoring report revealed that several clients interviewed randomly by HRS officials also told of being threatened by administrative staff members with being forced into the program by program by court order. After a story appeared in The St. Petersburg Times in April detailing the results of the HRS inspection, several other former clients contacted The Times to report similar treatment by Straight staff members.
MICHAEL CONCEDES he had a headful of problems before he went to Straight. His parents have been divorced about 10 years, but the court agreed to let him live with his mother about a year ago, even though his father retained legal custody of him and his brother. Michael says he wanted to move in with his mother because he had difficulties with his father.
Michael admits that for two years, he smoked marijuana once or twice a week. Occasionally he drank beer. He once smoked a marijuana cigarette that someone later told him had cocaine in it. And he did poorly in high school his junior year. Michael says he flunked tests on purpose to spite his father.
Dr. Anthony Calabrese, a radiologist in Kissimmee, has declined all comment on his sons' cases. But Michael says his father blames their troubles at home on drugs. That was why Michael's brother was in Straight, where he remains now. And that was why Michael went there with his mother.
MICHAEL HAD a fulltime summer job at a supermarket in Kissimmee at the time he went to the interview last July 19. The night before, he says, he had unloaded semitrailer trucks and stocked shelves from midnight to dawn, then drove to St. Petersburg with his mother for the 9 a.m. appointment.
When they arrived, Michael says, he was taken into a small room, called an "intake room," by two Straight clients known as peer counselors. He was seated and the
door was shut, he says. His mother was taken somewhere else.
He asked them how long he was going to be, Michael says. They told him they didn't know.
"I said, 'Why am I here?'
"They didn't know...
"And then they said, 'Well, talk about yourself'...So I tell them I work at Winn-Dixie unloading trucks...
"Then, after an hour of trying to figure out what's going on, they say 'Well, do you do any drugs?'
"I said I just smoke pot and drink beer."
A STAFF TRAINEE entered the room with a note pad and recited a list of drugs, asking Michael which drugs he did.
"I said pot and beer.
"He said pot and alcohol.
"Then he rang out a whole bunch of other drugs...
" 'PCP (animal tranquilizer)?'
" 'No.'
" 'Thai stick (a very potent form of marijuana from Thailand)?'
" ' No.'
" 'Mushrooms (organic hallucinogens)?'
" 'No.'
"You name it. 'Cocaine?'
" 'No.'
"After a while, I had it all memorized...It was real casual at first, then they started 'heavying up.' "
At different times, when he motioned to leave, Michael says, the Straight staff members moved towards the door and blocked his way. When he asked to go to the bathroom, he was led, flanked by the two teen-agers, to the bathroom. Then, he says, he was taken back to the intake room.
AFTER ABOUT three hours of questioning, Michael says, "This one man, Miller Newton, comes in and he says, 'What drugs do you do?' And I told him only pot and alcohol and named off the rest that I didn't do.
"Then he says, 'Well you got an attitude.' And I told him, 'Well, I'm tired of you all asking...I'm tired, I've got work to do (that night), I've got to get some sleep...'
"He (Newton) says, 'How many days ago did you smoke pot?' I said, 'A week, week-and-a-half ago.'
"So he lifts up my glasses and I guess my eyes were red. He said, 'Bulls---, you're lying. We're tired of this, you've got to start telling the truth.' "
"I stood up and screamed and yelled at him. 'F--- you! You don't know I've been working these past 12 hours. You don't know I haven't been sleeping. You don't know what the heck you've been putting me through!'
"He was yelling at me and I was yelling at him and my temper was going — Pshew! Then he yelled that that was the reason I had to be in the program. I said, 'What, get me in this place?'
"AND THEN, you know, it just hit me like...They're trying to put me in.
Other staffers, including adults, joined the interview, Michael says. "They would ask me what I do for kicks when I'm not doing drugs. I told them I like to run on a course and they would accuse me of lying and say people don't do things like that.
"They asked a lot of general questions. They said, 'Do you have a girlfriend?' I told them, 'Yes.' They said 'Do you like her?' I said, 'Yes.' 'Do you use her?' 'No.'
"Then they said, 'Do you neck?' I said, 'Yeah, sometimes.' Then they said, 'Well you're using her.'
"I mean, they just blew things way out of proportion. They make me feel like I wasn't half my weight, that I needed the program."
"They said it was my fault that me and my dad couldn't get along. I chose to make him upset...It wasn't anybody's fault by my own," Michael says. "I wasn't 'a man' because instead of staying there (with his father) and fixing it up, I left. They tried to blame it on me...
"THEY SAID I didn't have any responsibility because of my school record..."
And then, Michael says, they started talking about what Straight could do for him. They told him, he said, "that my and my dad's relationship would be better, we'd do things together more (if he joined Straight)."
Straight, Michael says he was told, would give him "four years of college awareness." He would "become better aware of the truth and be able to use it to keep from getting hurt by other people. 'You'd be able to talk about feelings, the real things in life...' " Michael says he was told.
A Straight staff member told him his mother "couldn't handle herself. She couldn't handle me. She couldn't handle my brother. She didn't know what she was doing," Michael says.
The only reason Michael's mother wanted him to live with her was so she could collect child support, Michael says he was told by an adult staff member.
In one of Straight's offices, meanwhile, Mrs. Marler says she was waiting to see her younger son. The people who talked to her, though, "sort of dropped (the younger boy) after a bit...and said it's usually the sibling that has the problem..." She said they told her that it would probably be Michael, not his brother, who had the more serious drug problem.
"I KEPT DENYING everything she (the adult staff member) said to me..." Mrs. Marler says. "I was telling her that he's a good worker at his job, I know the manager. I know that he spends a lot of time working on machinery, cars — whatever. He likes to read. He's thinking about going back to school...about going into the Winn-Dixie management program. I know his friends, the girls that he would see.
"They said, 'No. This is a coverup. This is all a coverup.' She was discounting everything I said. It was almost like she wasn't listening to me. I suppose they were trying to convince me that he did have a problem."
Mrs. Marler says she would be questioned about Michael and then be left alone for about 15 minutes. Then a staff member would return and the questioning would continue. As the morning wore into the afternoon, the questioning became more intense.
"Before they brought me in to see him (Michael),"Mrs. Marler says, "they were telling me, 'Did I know about his stealing (from his father), did I know about his assault and battery with a deadly weapon (against his stepmother), did I know about his homosexuality (with his brother)...' " Michael, they told her, had confessed to all of this, she says. Michael vehemently denies that he either committed any of these acts or confessed to them.
ABOUT 4 P.M., Mrs. Marler says, she was taken to see her son. "He (Michael) was crying and he could hardly talk...He was in a corner and they were in a semicircle" around him. Calabrese, her former husband, was there too.
Michael claims he was told by Straight staff members, including Newton, that Straight already had a court order that would force him into the program. When they said that, Michael looked up at his father, and Calabrese nodded his head up and down, Michael says.
If he signed, he could go home in 14 days and complete the program in three months, Michael says he was told. If he refused, the court order would force him into the program anyway. If that happened, he would not be able to go home again for 30 days and would have to remain in the program two years, he says.
After two more hours, Michael says, he signed.
"They convinced me that I was a druggie and I needed help...that I was disrespectful in all respects because I was already telling off Mr. Newton," Michael says. "Just all of a sudden, I felt lowly of myself. They made my self-opinion go down. Just the constant 'You're no good' bit. 'You're a druggie. You're a druggie. I mean, when you hear that and you have no control, I mean there was nothing I could do."
NEWTON AND HARTZ declined to discuss Michael's version of the events or give their own. Whether the program accepts a client, says Newton, is determined by interview with parents, previous counselors, school officials, police and other children or relatives in the program. Neither he nor Hartz would say who was questioned about Michael prior to his interview.
In a general discussion, Newton said that one of the ideas behind the intake procedure is to get potential clients to admit their drug habits and to sign themselves into the program voluntarily.
"We have kids work with a kid until the kid admits to having a drug problem," Newton said. "Getting a kid to admit he has a drug problem is an arduous task, and admitting need of help...I don't really like to take a kid until I get the kid to own up. The kids usually get this in talking to them and pushing them, and I check their eyes.
"There are signs in the eyes that you can tell about if a kid is getting high pretty frequently..."
THE ACTUAL INTAKE procedure, says Newton, is "done by two other kids on the program who come and visit and mainly relate themselves, who share...their experiences as a druggie," he says. But an adult professional always gets involved, Newton says.
"We review what the kids (already in the program) have on them (the potential client). We go in and talk to the kid for a few minutes and talk to the parents and sign off," Newton says. "If there is a kid who is questionable, we usually have four or five peer staff members go in and look and maybe two of us (adults) will look at the kids and talk to the parents. We'll spend the time, if it's questionable, because we don't want to put the kid in the program who doesn't need to be here."
Newton denies using threats of court orders to frighten clients into joining Straight. "Michael is throwing the word 'threat' around very loosely. I do not threaten any kid. The facts are there is a degree in which family authority is coercion. That's reality."
"This program has never gone out and gotten a court order," says Hartz.
"The family takes the initiative. We cannot. We will not," says Newton.
THERE IS NOTHING in the Orange County Court records to show that Calabrese ever obtained a court order forcing Michael to join Straight.
But when Michael ran away from Straight in early October, his father did try to obtain a court order to force Michael to go back. Straight sent its clinical psychologist, Dr. William Giesz, and a 17-year-old junior staff member to Orlando to testify on behalf of Calabrese. The case was heard Oct. 15 in Orange County Circuit Court.
Michael's mother prepared for the court fight by having Michael examined by a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a physician. He was given a standard psychological examination.
The test results indicated Michael was "an adolescent experiencing situational family difficulties," that he was "sensitive to the opinions of others" and showed "considerable evidence of resentment of authority figures." The personality profile was "typical of adolescents who are experimenting with 'recreational drugs.' It is not a personality picture typical of those prone to abusing narcotics or other hard drugs," the report read.
HOWEVER, GIESZ, Straight's psychologist, testified "emphatically" that Michael needed further treatment, according to court transcripts. The Straight psychologist said he based his opinion on Michael's records when he entered the program three months earlier, as well as from from talking to other "youngsters on the staff," and from watching Michael in group sessions.
Giesz had not, however, seen Michael's most recent treatment records, did not know if the rest of the staff considered him ready to leave the program and never talked to Michael "one-on-one," court records show. The motion for the court order was denied.
"(The psychological test Michael was given) will not determine drug use," counters Newton. "The psychiatrist who — and the judge doesn't know this — but the psychiatrist who examined Michael was not qualified to determine adolescent drug abuse...It was a standard psychiatric report that missed a lot of symptomatic stuff that anyone who interviewed Mike who is a chemical-dependency counselor would have picked up. I can't discuss how I determined Mike had a drug problem."
Newton scoffs at the possibility that some clients may be bullied into joining Straight. "If you really want to look at what it takes to assault somebody's (self-esteem), it takes 30 to 60 days of 16- to 18-hour days," he says. So if somebody goes through a simple interview where kids are discussing things with them...if you have any self-worth at all, it doesn't disappear or diminish at all. Even with kids from broken homes.
"The only kids that have problems with self-worth are either kids who are emotionally disturbed or have a drug-use pattern."
Dr. Renu Das of Kissimmee, the psychiatrist who examined Micahael at his mother's request, said, "Michael's problem was not drug-related. His profile was typical of the recreational drug abuser." The Straight experience might have helped Michael had his problem been drug-related, she says.
"THE PROBLEM was that his father was not fostering enough independence," the doctor said. "It's a common adolescent problem."
Michael lost his job at Winn-Dixie. After finishing high school last spring, he signed up with the Air Force and is scheduled to begin service in October. In the meantime he is holding down two jobs — stocking shelves for an Albertsons supermarket and cleaning rugs for a cleaner service.
He says he no longer smokes marijuana.
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From the article above:
"Newton scoffs at the possibility that some clients may be bullied into joining Straight. "If you really want to look at what it takes to assault somebody's (self-esteem), it takes 30 to 60 days of 16- to 18-hour days," he says. "So if somebody goes through a simple interview where kids are discussing things with them...if you have any self-worth at all, it doesn't disappear or diminish at all. Even with kids from broken homes."
Well, he DOES know how long it takes to assault someone's self-esteem. That's the only fact he states in the entire interview. Oh, the irony.........
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"The only kids that have problems with self-worth are either kids who are emotionally disturbed or have a drug-use pattern."
How was this idiot able to pass himself off as a "professional" for 20+ years? What he is saying is "if we were able to break them in the 'interview', then that is proof that they needed the program". Apparently, having lazy or incompetent parents will never result in low self worth. If you didn't have the self confidence to stand up to these assholes, it is just proof that you were a "druggie".
"I check their eyes" ? What an unbelievable douchebag.
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Winston Pitman,approximately one year after this article's publication and after recognizing Reverend Doctor Virgil Miller Newton for who he really was,told him on no uncertain terms to.......................KISS HIS ASS!!!!!!!!
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Winston Pitman,approximately one year after this article's publication and after recognizing Reverend Doctor Virgil Miller Newton for who he really was,told him on no uncertain terms to.......................KISS HIS ASS!!!!!!!!
I guess he got in touch with his true feelings then, eh? :D From the 2nd article (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36865&p=400030#p399909) in this multi-article coverage by Milo Geyelin:
Winston and Nancy are grateful to Straight. "I had feelings, but before (going to Straight) I would always suppress them and push them down," says Winston, who wants to study psychology at St. Petersburg Junior College. "When I did finish the program, I was able to express my feelings. I had a lot more confidence in myself, a lot more self-esteem, which I never had."
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Here's another Milo Gevelin article which accompanied the above set, and which gives a broader picture of what was available at the time...
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St. Petersburg Times
Tuesday, July 7, 1981
Several Pinellas programs provide drug abuse counseling (http://http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YplSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=EXsDAAAAIBAJ&dq=james-hartz&pg=6913%2C5707025)
By MILO GEVELIN
St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer
Teen-age drug abusers in need of counseling have several major programs in Pinellas County from which to choose: Operation PAR (Parental Awareness and Responsibility) and Straight Inc. in St. Petersburg, Bay Shore on the Gulf in Dunedin and the Bowling Green Unit at Metropolitan Hospital in Pinellas Park.
Straight, where therapy is conducted primarily in large group sessions, attempts to change teen-agers' behavior by peer pressure. The program has one clinical psychologist and five adult professional counselors who oversee 12 junior and senior staff members. The junior and senior staff members — all former clients — handle the bulk of the therapy.
The program, which costs between $750 and $1,700, depending upon a family's ability to pay, lasts anywhere from six months to two years. The average length of involvement is 10 to 11 months. Parental involvement in the program is required.
At Straight, teen-age clients are looked upon as members of a deviant culture. They are separated from their families and schools for the first part of the program, then allowed to re-enter society in a series of progressive advancements, which must be "earned." The program is designed to force a "re-learning of the values, rules and behavior of the main culture," according to Straight administrative director Miller Newton.
AT BAY SHORE on the Gulf, 1340 Bayshore Blvd., Dunedin, as many as 16 clients — bothe adolescents and adults — are treated for alcohol and drug abuse. The program, which accepted its first client nearly a year ago, models much of its therapy on the type of group sessions used by Alcoholics Anonymous, says Dr. Sid Archer, director of the program and himself a recovered alcoholic.
The program requires family involvement in the program whether other family members use drugs or not, says Archer. "We believe in sharing, feeling, loving and breaking down defenses," he says. "There is confrontation and pressure."
The program for alcoholics lasts 28 days and costs $2,750; the program for drug abusers and alcoholics who abuse other substances lasts 42 days and costs about $4,000, Archer says. That includes accommodations in a converted motel where clients, sometimes with their families, live during their stay in the program.
THE BOWLING GREEN Unit, a private treatment center under contract with Metropolitan Hospital to treat alcohol and drug abusers, is a branch of Florida's oldest drug and alcohol treatment center in Bowling Green. The center has 20 beds and treats alcoholics during a 28-day program; drug abusers and alcoholics who use other drugs stay 56 days. The total cost — at $127.50 per day — ranges from $3,570 to $7,140. Like Bay Shore on the Gulf, the program treats both adolescents and adults.
The program uses group therapy, seminars and one-to-one counseling, says director Dan Kelly. Confrontation and peer pressure to force clients to recognize their drug dependencies are used to some extent, says Kelly, but the program also uses psychotherapy to help clients recognize emotional problems that may have contributed to their drug use.
"We use true group therapy, not just the Alcoholics Anonymous-type therapy," says Kelly. "We're helping people to resolve issues in their lives that maybe are 15 years old and that have never been resolved," Kelly says.
PAR OFFERS counseling sessions for teen-age drug abusers and their families, both individually and in groups, during scheduled meetings. To be admitted to the program, teen-agers must be "heavy" drug users with problems at home, in school or with the law that are directly attributable to drug use.
The cost at PAR, like Straight, also depends upon ability to pay, but it averages about $3 per session, according to PAR Associate Executive Director Arnold Andrews. Counseling at PAR is conducted by college-trained counselors, and the length of involvement at PAR can vary from two months to a year, he says.
PAR considers drug abuse to be a product of emotional, family and social conflicts and tries to deal with those problems as a whole.
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