Also brings up another point: Synanon and its derivatives are not meant to specifically cure. They are meant to convert those that are willing to convert and to kill off those that won't.
Fwiw, in the very early days, when Synanon was pretty much composed more or less of just hard core narcotics addicts, it did profess to "cure," or, at the least, to teach addicts to completely abstain.
Also, I don't think Synanon intended to "kill off" those that wouldn't convert (although Paul Morantz could quite understandably contest this). They actually, according to Yablonsky and others, turned quite a few people away, or kicked them out, if the required commitment just wasn't there or was insufficient in their eyes. They were always hard up on space. A bit of a
non sequitur this, or maybe not, but... I s'pose weeding out the most likely statistical failures is one way to artificially plump up those alleged fantastic success rates.