Scientology-Backed Group Running Anti-Drug Program At P.S. 186, Shell Bank & Other Local Schools
An anti-drug education program is coming under fire after parents discovered the group, The Foundation for a Drug Free World, is backed by the Church of Scientology.
The organization posted to its Facebook page that it had run several “free drug education events” in dozens of local schools, including one with current Miss New York Jillian Tapper at P.S. 186 (7601 19th Avenue) in Bensonhurst and another Sheepshead Bay’s JHS 14 Shell Bank (2424 Batchelder Street).
“We didn’t know anything about that, but Scientology, to me it’s a kind of ungodly thing that I don’t really support,” Claude Baptiste, whose son is a sixth-grader at Shell Bank, told the Daily News. “I wouldn’t want my kids to be a part of it, it’s not based on my fundamental religious beliefs.”
DNAinfo, which broke the story, reports that The Foundation for a Drug Free World visited 30 public schools last year, including elementary, middle and high school students in all five boroughs.
The Department of Education said they had no formal agreement with the foundation, and that the individual schools themselves may have partnered with the innocuous-sounding group to perform presentations.
Meanwhile, Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña told the New York Daily News she is concerned about the group infiltrating schools and she is currently investigating the situation.
“We’re looking into it. I’m not sending them out to schools. It’s not under my name,” she told the outlet.
The Church of Scientology, a controversial religion based on the work of science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard and which allegedly believes humans are inhabited by the spirits of dead, frozen aliens trapped on Earth by the evil galactic dictator Xenu, causing all of humanity’s emotional problems, said it was “proud of the work done by the program.”
The organization defended its curriculum, saying that it is “secular.”
However, the group’s ties to Scientology continue to cause concern, as the church has long been opposed to psychiatry, psychology and medicinal treatment of mental health problems.
And the foundation appears to be providing information whose basis in science is tenuous at best.
The online curriculum claims Ritalin, a common prescription medication for treating teens with ADHD, can cause hallucination, psychosis and violent behavior, even suggesting that it led one 17-year-old to kill his parents and injure his siblings with a hatchet, and was also what caused a 14-year-old to beat another boy to death with a baseball bat. DNAinfo notes that the materials also claim cocaine use causes murder and heroin use causes spontaneous abortions.
During a Foundation presentation in July, spokesperson Meghan Fialkoff emphasized that the curriculum was created by a committee of health professionals, but evaded questions from a reporter as to who these health experts were and what fields they worked in. Only Foundation founder Dr. Bernard Fialkoff — a dentist from Queens — was acknowledged as a committee member.The classroom materials and Foundation website also did not include that information.That July meeting was held in collaboration with Councilmember Felix Ortiz in order to announce a partnership that would bring the Foundation’s drug-awareness materials to classrooms throughout Sunset Park.The materials include 18 lessons and a Teacher’s Guide, and come in 10 languages. According to Fialkoff, they are already distributed in 20 percent of public schools in New York City.
