More Celebrated Poor Results

Since the 1950s, psychiatry has monopolized the field of drug rehabilitation research and treatments. Its long list of failed cures has included lobotomies, insulin shock, psychoanalysis and LSD.

“Ultra Rapid Opiate Detoxification,” a more recent example, uses narcotics to keep an addict unconscious for about five hours, during which withdrawal supposedly takes place. One recipient of this treatment told of awaking, her mouth and throat blood-filled, with broken capillaries in her face, and tremendous cramping, nausea and convulsions.

In Russia, between 1997 and 1999, 100 psychosurgery operations were conducted on teenage addicts in St. Petersburg. “They drilled my head without any anesthetic,” Alexander Lusikian said. “They kept drilling and cauterizing [burning] exposed areas of my brain … blood was everywhere. … During the three or four days after the operation … the pain in my head was so terrible— as if it had been beaten with a baseball bat. And when the pain passed a little, I still felt the desire to take drugs.” Within two months, Alexander had reverted to drugs.

In 2001, Russian addicts were also strapped to beds and beaten, while being fed only bread and water during withdrawal. At the Leningrad Regional Center of Addictions, alcoholics and heroin addicts are administered ketamine, an anesthetic with strong hallucinogenic properties, in conjunction with “talk therapy.

As bizarre as it may sound, Russia, Switzerland and the United States are also conducting trials with LSD as a “solution” for substance abuse.

In 1992, Australian psychiatrists called for heroin, cocaine and marijuana to be sold legally in liquor stores. Instead, eight years later, Australia established legal “heroin injection rooms” known as “shooting galleries.”

The last thing any psychiatric treatment has achieved is rehabilitation.

As reported in a 2001 survey of American companies about the effectiveness of “substance abuse” programs for their employees, “the overwhelming majority saw few results from these programs. In the survey, 87% reported little or no change in absenteeism since the programs began and 90% saw little or no changes in productivity ratings.”

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