I was reading up on the Narconon Outcome studies report that was released awhile back. Although not a complete list, I was focused on 2007, where it states that 35 people who graduated over a 5 month period were surveyed. Here's a glimpse at the results.
Students graduating the program 6 months ago are asked about their drug/alcohol use over two
time periods: the last 30 days or since graduation.
The logic of this is that some students encounter problems upon their initial return to their
environment, but regain control by applying the information and skills gained from the Narconon
program (possibly with the help of the follow-up unit).
What is most important to the policy and science community is whether the drug abuser has truly
gained self-control, or whether any reversion leads down a dwindling spiral to new addiction and
the need for additional treatment.
Findings of the recent survey of students who graduated in May to Aug 2006 are presented here.
All earlier data is given for comparison in the table at the end of this report. It appears that the
lower sobriety rates in this period are primarily due to an increase in alcohol use/abuse.
Number of
Graduates Percent
Total surveyed 35* 95.0
Drug and alcohol free last 30 days 26 76.5
Only used alcohol last 30 days: 4
Social drinking – not intoxication 3
Alcohol to Intoxication 1
Illegal drug <5 times 4
Illegal drug 5+ times 1
Drug and alcohol free since graduating 26!
76.5
Only used alcohol since graduating 3
Drugs <5 times since graduating 4
Drugs 5+ times since graduating 2
Re-enrolled in rehab services since graduating 3 8.8
Arrested or in Jail since graduating 1 2.9
*39 were surveyed however 5 are now staff at Narconon centers, these
individuals are all drug free and are not reported on in this table.
! These are not entirely the same students who were drug free in the last 30
days. Reports included several students who reverted early on then stopped and
several other students who used drugs or alcohol more recently.
What I thought most interesting is the assumption that only 35 graduated during a 5 month period, or only 35 were surveyed. Considering that Narconon success office is known to attempt to call "all students" as they usually promote to families, what happened to the rest?
Narconon program staff maintain regular follow-up contact with graduates who return to their
communities to assist them in applying life skills learned during their program. For quality
management purposes, at six months after graduation, staff complete a structured phone
interview to measure the outcomes status. The questionnaire contains 18 common outcome
measures related to drug use, employment, living situation, legal issues and ongoing use of life
skills obtained on the program. For this survey period, we added a question to assess satisfaction
with the services received.
According to Narconon Arrowheads 440 filing for 2007, it appears that they brought in over $11 million dollars in program revenue. If we low ball the price of Narconon in 2007 at approx $25k per client, than it appears that Narconon reasonably brought in somewhere around 440 clients in 2007. Over a 5 month period this is approximately 183 clients per 5 month period. So, out of 183 clients who started, only 35 were surveyed?
We can assume one of few things:
1) Narconon did an unbiased survey and randomly picked 35 clients ahead of time.
2) Narconon only used 35 clients that they considered good to include in the survey.
3) Narconon surveyed 183 clients and only used 35 good results in their survey. Which would yield a 14% success rate.
4) Only 35 clients graduated in a six month period. Which means that only 19% of clients who began the program actually finished and could be included in the survey.
I'm leaning towards a combination of 2,3, and 4. What is suspect is that out of the pool of "random" selectees of 40 people, 5 were not included in the survey because they moved on to staff.
So, in other words 12% of the graduates surveyed moved onto staff. I don't know of any rehab that could hire over 10% of their graduates. That is, unless they are firing them after they revert during the $50/week training period.
Perhaps coolhand could help me to decipher this data.
