A venomous snake
New subscribers: We’re on episode 3 of a multiepisode series called American Rehab. If you haven’t listened yet, catch up here.
On this week’s new episode of American Rehab, we’re digging into the origin story of Synanon, America’s first nationally recognized drug rehab. By the late 1960s, the organization was on the rise: It had a celebrated treatment program, intake centers in cities all over the country and a collection of residential locations. Its vision, once limited to drug treatment, was growing ever more ambitious.
One problem, though. In the program’s first decade of operation, less than 1% of participants graduated – a total of 65 people.
Synanon’s founder, Charles Dederich, began to move the organization’s goal posts, evolving it from a rehab into a lifestyle – something you don’t aspire to leave.
In 1974, facing scrutiny from the IRS, the program took yet another bold step: It declared itself a religion. As reporter Ike Sriskandarajah points out, Synanon’s top lawyers laid out the cynical thinking behind this gambit.
“One of the reasons that we're pushing this thing right now is because we may want to shut off our books from inspection by government agencies and people … we don't like,” one of them said. “That would make it a bit more difficult for the IRS to impose taxes upon us.”
“If I were one of Synanon’s lawyers and had to lay out my plan to avoid taxes,” Ike explains, “I’d try to turn off the tape recorder first.”
As Dederich’s empire began to crumble, its rules became more stringent and capricious. No smoking. No sugar. Men were pressured to get vasectomies. One participant who wanted to leave found a harsh surprise pushed into his mail slot by other Synanon members: a live rattlesnake.
Hear the episode
PLUS: American Rehab is the culmination of years of reporting on work-based rehabs throughout the U.S.
For the first time, we have a sense of how widespread the phenomenon is.
In a new investigation, we identified at least 300 rehab facilities in 44 states that have required participants to work without pay. In recent years, at least 60,000 people a year attended such rehab programs.
To identify these facilities, we contacted several hundred programs with survey questions, interviewed hundreds of current and former employees and rehab participants, and reviewed thousands of pages of tax records, confidential financial documents, and wage and injury reports.
But the numbers of programs and participants may be far higher than those we were able to verify. The federal government leaves rehab regulation to the states, and few states require rehab programs that don’t offer medical treatment to get licensed or report information publicly. Fewer than 1 out of 5 programs we identified were licensed.
In this oversight vacuum, the programs have multiplied, spurred by staggering addiction rates, a growing demand for alternatives to prison and a shortage of treatment facilities.
Read the full investigation
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