William benitez, The founder of NARCONON

By C Devidasan

I was in 1947 William Benitez smoke Pot for the first time. He was then just 13 t

years old. By the time he turned 15 years, Benitez had already graduated into more serious drugs. Drugs and bad company introduced Benitez in to the world of crime and he had been arrested by police several times. Thinking that he would be able to evade continuous pestering of Police, Benitez joined Marines. However, during the Korean conflict he was again arrested by military police and was court marshaled. He was finally discharged from Marines “as un-desirable.”

William Benitez wanted to kick off the habit of drugs and tried several methods. But he could not get away from the drugs completely. “I carried the monkey for about eighteen years, and it cost me thirteen calendar years of being locked up. In addition to doing time in the Marines, I did a Federal prison term and also was convicted three times in Arizona state courts”, wrote a dejected Benitez.

In 1964 Benitez was again arrested by Police and sent to Arizona Prison for serving a 15 year prison sentence as he was “a habitual offender.” It is here he happened to read a “tattered copy” of the book written by L Ron Hubbard entitled “Fundamentals of thought.” The book captivated Benitez. “The material identified human abilities and their development. I was amazed I had never run across such workability within a multitude of other works I had studied over the years”, an impressed Benitez wrote. He continued to read other works of Ron and soon realized that drug addiction was “nothing more than a disability” that blocks a person’s ability that is essential to constructive survival. He also realized that if the rehabilitated person is infused certain abilities, he could persevere, isolate problems, resolve them and achieve the goals he is capable of achieving them without losing the values and ethical standards that governs the life.

By now Benitez had realized that he had acquired the abilities and could be safe from drugs. But having undergone the miseries and hopelessness that rule a drug addict all by himself, he wanted to help other addicts by making the technology of Ron available to all of them. So he decided to pursue the jail authorities to conduct a drug programme inside the jail, where he himself was also undergoing sentence.

Benitez’s request to conduct the drug programme for 20 convicted prisoners caused concern to the officials who feared such a programme might pose security problems. However Benitez was persuasive and persistent in his efforts to impress

10 Mathura Road, Jangpura B, New Delhi 110 014. Tel: 011 2430 6600. E-mail narcononindia@gmail.com

upon the authorities the necessity of such a programme. On August 2, 1965, Benitez jumped down from his double bunk in the old cell block where he was housed and made the following notation on his wall calendar: “Decision to set up Narcotic Foundation.” It may be pointed out here that Benitez had developed unshakable faith in technology of Ron Hubbard. This is evident from his remarks, “I knew I had to make this technology available to other addicts in the prison. I thought back over the years of all the junkies I had shot up with, and remembered their most treasured conversation, “One of these days I’m going to quit.” I had found the means and was going to share it with them. That’s when I made the decision real by writing it down on my calendar page in my cell”.

Finally after a continuous denial for six months, jail authorities agreed to start the programme and William Benitez founded NARCONON (NARCOtics-NONe) on February 19, 1966. The programme soon started expanding and Benitez started getting requests from non-addicts also to participate in the NARCONON Programme. Benitez was actually able to establish to the prison authorities that this programme is beneficial to any person, inmates or otherwise because its attention was on increasing abilities of men who underwent the programme.

It is pertinent to mention here that Benitez soon discovered that he was tried in the court under a wrong statute and was sentenced in excess of that prescribed by the Law and was advised that he could conceivably be re-sentenced to time served and be released based on his eighteen months already served, because of the miscarriage of justice. Instead of petitioning for an immediate release, he requested a smaller sentence since he wanted to build up Narconon Programme he had just started, which was still in its infancy. The court re-sentenced Benitez four to six years, leaving him sixteen months to serve. Back in the prison he developed NARCONON programme to its full capacity. “It was the best, but toughest decision I ever made in my life. I would have loved to walk away from that court a free man” stated Benitez.

The news and electronic media took keen interest in the man who preferred to walk back into the prison and soon articles started appearing. The news daily, Arizona Star interviewed Benitez inside the prison and carried a two part series on the Narconon Programme in August 1966. From Phoenix TV Channel 10 broadcast the interview of Benitez and the members of Narconon.

On October 1967, Benitez completed his prison term and was released. He moved to California to expand the Narconon organization and to make it available to persons in need. Mr. Hubbard and his organizations supported the effort, resulting in worldwide expansion.

10 Mathura Road, Jangpura B, New Delhi 110 014. Tel: 011 2430 6600. E-mail narcononindia@gmail.com

Years later, Mr. Benitez returned to Arizona and was hired as Inmate Liaison by former Arizona Department of Corrections Director, Ellis McDougall, in 1981. Until his death in 1999, he served as a Hearing Officer on inmate complaints for the Corrections Director at Central Headquarter.

From the Author.

It was sometime back in October 2004; I began researching on William Benitez after being associated with Narconon local office which at that time functioned in a residential building in the posh Defence Colony area of New Delhi, India.

Earlier I was introduced to the works of L R Hubbard by a German gentleman, Horst Tubbesing who began the Mission here and I remember reading most of the works of Ron starting from “Dianetics” the fountain head of various initiatives that came out of it including Narconon Foundation and Drug Free World. I was fascinated by the work the team of volunteers of Narconon that was disseminating awareness on Drugs which Ron Hubbard termed as “one of the barriers” that man faces when he begins to progress in his life and decided to be a part of it.

After a gap of several years, I decided to again support the cause of creating drug awareness actively and checked my archives and was amazed to see the tones of material I had generated in the form of write ups, notings, analytics, transcriptions, etc., etc., that ran into hundreds of pages and as I went through, this piece too came up and I found that I had completed it on November, 6 2004.

The information I have gathered for this write up came from various sources which include digital media, various books and leaflets and Narconon website.

C Devidasan, August 29, 2015

“For a person to solve problems, all what is needed is to develop his Skills” L Ron Hubbard

10 Mathura Road, Jangpura B, New Delhi 110 014. Tel: 011 2430 6600. E-mail narcononindia@gmail.com

By C Devidasan

10 Mathura Road, Jangpura B, New Delhi 110 014. Tel: 011 2430 6600. E-mail narcononindia@gmail.com