But the time of quiescence came to an end one spring evening in 1970. For a couple of days, Dederich and his executives had been in conference. Rumors had been circulating that a big change was in the offing. A meeting for all Bay residents had been called at the Inn dining room. It was 8 P.M. when Dan Garrett stood behind the table he was sharing with the Dederichs and several of the Academy's mid-level managers. He cleared his throat. The dining room quieted.
Garrett announced that he was pleased to bring us the news that the Synanon Board of Directors had arrived at a momentous decision. It had become clear that Synanon could no longer claim to be a morally advanced way of life if it continued to tolerate such a destructive and degrading habit as cigarette smoking. Therefore, the board had decided to take a position against the use of tobacco in Synanon. We were going to take our position despite the fact that we could have all the cigarettes we wanted for free. Just recently, we had obtained a commitment from the North Carolina cigarette manufacturers to provide us with our full supply of tobacco, two hundred fifty thousand dollars' worth per year. Now he, Dan Garrett, was going to personally write a letter to the manufacturers and tell them thanks, but no thanks. They could take their rotten product and stuff it.
A big grin spit Garrett's face. "How about that?" he asked the audience. "How many communities would take a quarter of a million bucks and heave it out the window for the sake of principle?"
Applause rippled through the room, Garrett sat down, and Charles Dederich launched into a brief speech. He explained that Synanon had to do something to distinguish itself. Over the years, hundreds of addicts had come into the community, straightened out their lives, then run out to start programs of their own and hustle government funding by claiming expertise in Synanon's method of curing drug addiction. We in the community might suspect that these imitations of Synanon, such as Phoenix House or Daytop Lodge in New York City, were utter failures. Unfortunately, the mass of the public lumped Synanon in with them. So we had to do something to redemonstrate the special power of our process. We would act together to give up nicotine, one of the most addictive and deadly substances ingested by man. We would create the only nicotine-free community in the modern world.
After Dederich's speech, the floor was thrown open for discussion. One after another, the members of the audience rose to back Dederich and Garrett's play. Suddenly, the medley of enthusiasm was interrupted by harsh shouts from the front table.
"You. You, Green. Get up. Get that goddamned sour look off your face."
"On your feet."
A young woman hurriedly stood in front of her chair.
"You're doing it again, Green."
"Every time we want to do something here, you're resisting with that sour look."
"Maybe she shouldn't be here. Maybe this miserable, sullen asshole is not Academy material."
"Maybe she's not. Maybe we ought to throw her dead ass out. I'll tell you what, Green, you stay standing for the rest of this meeting. And we want to see teeth, you asshole."
Green stretched her lips into a big grin. The rest of the audience sat stiffly silent. The people at the front table subsided. The praise for the new position resumed.
Only one more time was it interrupted. A short, slight black man named Wallace rose. In a carefully polite voice, he said he thought that for members of the community to be made to stop smoking violated the Synanon philosophy, which stated in part, "A man cannot be forced toward permanent and creative learning."
Dederich began to reply, but the jangling of the phone interrupted him. Jack Hurst was calling from Santa Monica for the Founder. Dederich took the call and with gruff mirth explained Wallace's objections to Jack. Then he turned to Wallace to tell him Jack had an anticigarette movement under way in Santa Monica but still permitted smoking in some areas of his facility. If Wallace hurried south, he might be able to get in a few last drags in the Santa Monic boiler room before the rising tide of the new position squeezed the last nicotine fiend out of Synanon.
Laughter filled the room. Wallace sat down. The praising resumed.
By the following morning cigarettes had disappeared entirely from the Academy, and soon they were gone from Synanon altogether. Meanwhile, it became known that the board had adopted the new position not merely for such strategic and idealistic reasons as mentioned at the Academy meeting. It had also, perhaps chiefly, taken the position because of the particular personal needs of Charles Dederich.
Dederich's doctor had warned him in a Game that if he did not stop smoking he would die. In response, Dederich lit up a cigarette and blew smoke in the doctor's face. By the next morning, however, he had decided he did not want to die. He would stop smoking. In order to do that, he needed to persuade others to do the same and to enjoy a smoke-free environment. To stop drinking, he'd had to become a fanatical AA missionary. Now, he prevailed upon his board members to join him in giving up tobacco and in banning it from all of Synanon.
Excerpt from "Paradise, Incorporated: Synanon", A Personal Account by David U. Gerstel, pp66-68; 1982 Presido Press.
