AARC is what it is because people who had money and connections wanted it to be thus. These people wanted the product that Miller Newton sold. That product was not successful treatment of adolescent substance abuse. That product was psychological freedom, and people craved it.
Parents who ignored or mistreated their children were freed from the psychological burden of responsiblity for the inner turmoil these children experienced. They were freed from all responsiblities for their children beyond paying AARC to keep them.
Other parents who did not approve of their children's defiant behaviour were able to have complete control over these defiant children by having them confined in the Centre and in the host homes.
For some of the clients who were no longer children, they were freed from the demands of adult living. These people formed their social structure around AARC. They were able to gain direction from AARC and a sense of community.
AARC served a great purpose for politicians as well. They were able to curry favor from constituents who wanted AARC for their own purposes. Additionally, these politicians served themselves by creating the appearance of making advances in the complex problem of substance abuse.
The Police got behind AARC because it gave the appearance to the public that gains were being made in stemming the perceived tide of crime surrounding drug abuse.
The media got a story that was tailor-made. It encompassed scandal, drama, and redemption.
It didn't matter that the entire thing grew out of deception.
AARC began with the deception of Miller Newton, who claimed to be able to treat an array of adolescent problems from substance abuse to eating disorders. He also claimed to be able to cure homosexuality.
This panacea had great appeal to certain people in Calgary, and these people were not to be dissuaded simply because Newton was exposed as a fraud. These people loved the idea that the range of behaviors that in any way involved substance abuse could be neatly packed as addiction.
It did not matter if the substanace abuse arose as a means of coping with childhood sexual abuse. It did not matter if the substance abuse was simply a part of adolescent rebellion. In certain instances, it didn't even matter if the substance abuse was real.
The entire array of behaviors could be labelled as addiction, and AARC could then deliver it's product, which is psychological freedom.
Unforunately, there is another group of people involved. These are adolescents who do not want to join AARC's community. These are also people who are not interested in adopting the religion of the twelve steps. These people do not wish to give their lives over to a higher power. This group also includes young people who do not accept AARC's view of substance abuse as a chronic disease, and a moral failing.
AARC can make no accommodation for these people. They must be broken, and there's the rub. In order to break them, AARC uses means that are entirely illegal. They force these people to remain in the program until they do adopt AARC's religion as their own. AARC detains them against their will, until these people flee from AARC or they submit.
People who choose to give their children have the right to do so, the same as they have a right to send their children to any other church. Nobody, however, has the right to hold these children against their will until they accept AARC's belief system.
No judge, nor any other figure of authority, ever had any right under the laws of our society to force children into AARC. AARC is not a legal detention facility, nor is it a medical facility. It is a religious institution. It's methods are not those of medical science, and the staff are not health care professionals. They are converts to a particular religion, and their goal is to convert their charges to the same belief system.
Every aspect of AARC has been established to avoid adherence to the laws of our land. The facility is unlicensed so that it can operate with no official oversight. The staff are unlicensed to ensure that AARC has the final say in what qualifications are required to perform the work done at AARC. It receives it's money either from charity, from clients, or in lump sums from government, thus avoiding any regulation of it's activities.
AARC uses unlicensed, unregulated foster homes to avoid paying the overhead for residences, and to avoid having to submit to the regulatory procedures required to operate a residential facility.
AARC has specifically cultivated a relationship with our Attorney General, which it advertises. This relationship has resulted in a complete refusal by the Ministry of Justice to examine the practises surrounding AARC.
As a sub-class of AARC clients exists, those who do not wish to be converted, a dynamic has emerged wherein these people can be subjected to all manner of degradation and abuse. Oldcomers and Peer Counselors, who have demonstrated loyalty to the institution, are given power to subjugate and bring the recalictrant Newcomers into the fold. This dynamic is the direct cause of much of the more egregious abuses of individual rights in AARC, and it is a fundamental elemen of AARC's make-up.
Ron Stevens has vouched for AARC in the legislature. He has repeated, in the legislature, the preposterous and demonstrably false claims of AARC's effectiveness at treating adolescent substance abuse. The Attorney General has vouched for a man who has repeatedly misrepresented himself as a qualified mental health professional. This is a very serious error in judgement on the part of Ron Stevens, and he has compromised himself. As long as he remains the Attorney General, there is no reason to assume that the Province will make any move to investigate AARC.
This leaves individual clients to file police reports detailing specific instances of abuse. This is a very unfortunate situation. Members of Calgary's police force have appeared in public at AARC's fundraisers, lending their support. Others have given accounts to the media detailing claims of AARC's ability to treat child sex workers.
Each client, by their admission into AARC, has been labelled a drug addict. The word of these purported social deviants is suspect before they open their mouths.
AARC has created a complex system to ensure it's survival, and to obscure from the general public it's true nature. It has a steady supply of new recruits. It has a supply of members willing to debase and degrade themselves in public in order to garner support for the institution. It has the support of government and law enforcement officials who have compromised themelves after consuming AARC's promises of freedoom from the complexities of modern life. It has the support of the media who took AARC's claims at face value and provided a stage from which AARC members could pitch their testimonials. And it has cash. More cash than the Wizard could have imagined in his wildest dreams while apprenticing under Miller Newton down in New Jersey.
So what's the point of railing about AARC, an apparently immovable monolith? The point is that it is wrong. It's wrong to swindle people. It is wrong to subject adolescents to the twisted thought control techniques perfected by Miller Newton and stolen by the Wizard. It is wrong to take children who have been subjected to these practises and put them in charge of other defenseless children. And it is wrong to do all of this while denigrating the laws of this land, and in the name of medicine.
