Rehabs all over the world are firetraps

May 6 the world woke to the news of yet another fire in a rehabilitation center. This time tragedy struck the "Sacred Heart of Jesus" in Chosica near Lima in Peru.

14 people died. The cure for their addiction turned into their death.

Together with our U.S partners our organization has been involved in alerting the authorities when fire-escapes and doors have been found locked or blocked at group homes, residential treatment centers and boarding schools. We do know that parents and relatives want to keep teenagers locked up based on the claim that they need to be kept safe, but fire regulations cannot be ignored. Otherwise it will lead to tragedies like the one in Chosica.

As the article states this fire were the second one this year. Another fire claimed the life of 29 people.

I Russia there have been several fires with many victims.

It is stated that the rule is that residential treatment centers in Peru are in fact private prisons where people are held against their will. We must state that it is time for Peru to clean up their act. They need to regulate the treatment centers and close those down which don't provide professional treatment. Fact is that we in Denmark do know that most treatment of addiction are faith-based and waste of time and money. The newspapers and Television Stations in Denmark can random-pick various faith-based treatment centers and show the viewers scandal after scandal involving the tax-payers money. It is only a question whether the viewers become tired of hearing the same old news repeated all the time.

People who suffer from addiction will hit rock bottom and be ready for treatment at a certain point. Only then it is time to intervene and offer professional treatment. Then you can provide it without locking people up and you can offer it for a much lower price enabling the society to treat a higher amount of addicts for the same funds.

Portugal has shown the path countries should choose when battling addiction. They have decriminalized drug-use and have shifted their focus to the distribution network. As result more people enter treatment because the lack of stress from the authorities gives them time to consider their situation and in general drug use is down.

Please do help your relatives who suffer from addiction. Be there when they reach rock bottom and do not enable them by giving them anything but clean clothes and food. Don’t try to lock them up or you will pick in as much risk as they are as result of their addiction.

Sources:

• Peru drug clinic fire kills 14 people locked inside (The Guardian, May 6 2012)
• Fire in Moscow hospital kills 45 people (USA-today, December 9, 2006)
• 37 killed in fire at drug rehab clinic in Kazakhstan with barred windows (My Daily News, September 14, 2009)
• Portugal drug law show results ten years on, experts say (AFP - Google Hosted News, July 1, 2011)

Confrontational therapy in Denmark

Today a Danish newspaper reported about a alcohol detox program in the city of Frederiksberg.

It states that the clients were humiliated as part of the detox process.

But people needs to understand that this process of humiliation is normal in detox programs. It is called confrontational therapy or attack therapy.

It was invented long ago by the detox program called Synanon. Synanon developed itself into a kind of church but not before the methods became mainstream in the detox process of alcoholics and drug users.

One of the financial supporters - Mel Wasserman - who used to sell funiture established a boarding school based on a combination of the ideas of Danish continuation schools ("Efterskoler") and a detox program. Beside normal activities in schooling and leisure, the students had to take part in a 12 step detox program.

There is no number of the students he hurt in the process of becoming a self-taught saviour of teenagers in so-called need. The most important point of criticism was that they took teenagers in with all kind of problems claiming to be able to fix them. While everybody know that you cannot be able to give real help before you specialize, it unfortunately became mainstream in the industry to let the marketing department decide how many you can enroll.

Denmark did abandon juvies in the 1970's. They were quick to adapt the Missouri model with a lot of small group homes and it worked well for two decades until a new problem became very clear. Denmark had failed to make people aware of our houserules. Visitors to Saud Arabia have to sign a letter stating what they think is the most obivious rules in their country. It is fair. While the rules about women not driving and the general ban on alcohol seem unfair or funny for people arriving from other countries, it is kind of fair to state what the laws is, so people can leave very fast if they don't like them.

We failed and people did not know how to adapt to our society, so the crime among juveniles boomed. The number of group homes exploded and we discovered that we had copied the United States in one vital area where we should have sought regulation from the very start.

Still on this very date of October 11 2009 everybody can start a detox program or a juvenile group home. Like with Wasserman it doesn't matter what kind of education you had before entering this business. Of course there are some oversight. Poorly managed group homes have to close when they don't get new clients, but the damage had been done. The children are put on a path toward adult prison. Every statistic support that fact.

Inside the established health care department run by our public system for tax-expenses there are rules about how to conduct group therapy. Attack therapy is not allowed for good reason. Such rules don't apply to private run group homes, boarding schools or detox programs.

That's why we can see one example after another about how people in need to get rid of an addiction in their life become victim of a program which are either run by people with poor skills or by people with hidden motives like trying to hire the former addiction to their cult or church.

I hope that the Danish government will see to that this area is regulated. Addicts and so-called troubled youth should be able to receive therapy in out-patient programs in their local community. It is at least 10 times cheaper and it makes it possible to regulate a program thorough. Regulation saves lives and it keep the most obvious scam-artists away.

I urge the Danish parliament to save people who are in their middle of the worst possible crisis in their lives from fall victims to either poor quality, religious movements or crooks.