{"id":5078,"date":"2021-10-07T16:03:25","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T15:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shindig-magazine.com\/?p=5078"},"modified":"2021-10-07T16:03:25","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T15:03:25","slug":"la-rehab-rattlesnakes-counter-cultural-musings-from-tsptr-dossier-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=5078","title":{"rendered":"LA: Rehab &#038; Rattlesnakes \u2013 Counter-Cultural musings from TSPTR. Dossier #5"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In the fifth of our monthly counter-cultural musings from <a href=\"https:\/\/tsptr.com\">TSPTR<\/a>, we look at straightening up in LA<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Before Synanon there was no drug rehab. Launched in a dingy Santa Monica storefront in 1958 by Charles Dederich, it opened centres up and down California, eventually morphing into a utopian community, then a religion and finally a cult worth more than $30 million. Members shaved their heads, wore overalls, and lived together at Synanon compounds, professing a steadfast obedience to Dederich, no matter how brutal his methods.<\/p>\n<p>A college dropout and a drunk, Charles Dederich bounced from job to job, marrying, divorcing, and marrying again. In \u201957 he took part in an experiment at UCLA testing LSD as a cure for alcoholism. Speaking to an oral historian documenting Synanon\u2019s short history in \u201962, Dederich called it \u201cthe most important single experience in my entire life\u201d, crediting the drug with unlocking a newfound confidence. \u201cI became a different person, really and truly,\u201d he said. \u201cEverything that has happened to me since \u2013 Synanon, everything \u2013 dates from that point.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Synanon Short Film\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jLAjvFFWLBk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Born in 1913 in Toledo, Ohio, Dederich was four when his alcoholic father died in a car accident. His mother raised him as a devout Roman Catholic. \u201cI believed, literally, that I would go to hell if I didn\u2019t go to church on Sundays,\u201d Dederich recalled. But when he was 14, he read his stepfather\u2019s copy of H.G. Wells\u2019s\u00a0<em>The Outline Of History<\/em>\u00a0and \u201cbecame a militant atheist, almost overnight\u201d. Soon after, he began drinking.<\/p>\n<p>Easily bored, Dederich wasn\u2019t one for learning or for working. He spoke in a growl and was overweight, the right side of his bulldog face drooping from a near-fatal bout of meningitis at 29. Dederich came out west to Santa Monica at 40, his second marriage in mid-collapse. He floundered for three years in the ocean breeze before walking into his first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Partway through, Dederich marched to the podium and shared with the group. People listened. They laughed, they applauded. Dederich was hooked. \u201cI went from one AA meeting to another every night,\u201d he told psychiatrist Daniel Casriel, one of a number of social scientists to write books on Synanon in the \u201960s. \u201cThat\u2019s all I did&#8230; I was the first one to speak, and I\u2019d speak all night unless they stopped me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After the acid experiment in \u201957 (he was one year sober at the time), Dederich became a voracious reader of philosophy and psychology. Looming especially large were the nonconformity espoused by Emerson in \u201cSelf-Reliance\u201d and the utopian notions put forth by Thoreau and Skinner. He was living on $33-a-week unemployment checks, and he began to taper off from AA. When other recovering alcoholics checked up on him, Dederich would engage them in impromptu meetings. Equal parts grad-school symposiums and combative group-therapy sessions, those get-togethers became thrice-weekly affairs.<\/p>\n<p>Then one day a young heroin addict named Whitey Walker, fresh out of prison, joined the group. As he began inviting other \u201cdope fiends\u201d to the mix, the language grew coarser, the cross talk more aggressive. Dederich loved it. The sessions became known as \u201csynanons\u201d, a portmanteau of \u201csymposium\u201d (or perhaps \u201cseminar\u201d) and \u201canonymous.\u201d Dederich, who provided couches for people to crash on as they kicked heroin, would come to believe that addicts weren\u2019t full-fledged adults and shouldn\u2019t be treated as adults. The younger addicts took to calling him Dad.<\/p>\n<p>When the gatherings grew too large for Dederich\u2019s apartment, he leased a storefront in Ocean Park for $100 a month. The same year, 1958, the group incorporated as a non-profit. Convinced that his creation was an innovation on par with the alphabet, Dederich predicted it would be as famous as <em>Coca-Cola<\/em>. Thus, began the media\u2019s decade-long enchantment with Synanon. Early on, the\u00a0<em>Los Angeles Times<\/em>\u00a0ran a two-part feature on the group. The\u00a0<em>Los Angeles Mirror<\/em>\u00a0published a four-part series. A 14-page photo spread in\u00a0<em>Life<\/em>\u00a0magazine, hailing Synanon as \u201ca tunnel back into the human race\u201d, was followed by a glowing write-up in\u00a0<em>Time<\/em>\u00a0magazine.<\/p>\n<p>US Senator Thomas J. Dodd declared that Synanon could \u201clead the way in the future to an effective treatment for not only drug addicts but also criminals and juvenile delinquents\u201d. Social scientists flocked to see for themselves, while Hollywood came out with the film\u00a0<em>Synanon<\/em>\u00a0in \u201965, starring Edmond O\u2019Brien as Charles and Eartha Kitt as Betty.<\/p>\n<p>Ten years after its founding, Synanon boasted at least 1,100 members and was receiving $2.5 million a year in donations. It had $7 million worth of real estate in Santa Monica, West LA, San Diego, San Francisco, Tomales Bay, Reno, Detroit, New York City, and Puerto Rico, owned a number of gas stations, and ran a $1 million-a-year specialty advertising business that sold pens and office supplies bearing the Synanon logo. Salesmen implored Fortune 500 companies to \u201cbuy from Synanon and save a life\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Synanon\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VZAiQO7Qf0g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Few noticed, but the Synanon mission had been shifting. In \u201969 the organisation dropped the goal of \u201cgraduation.\u201d From then on, addiction could be treated only by keeping addicts within the fold. Synanon began to welcome nonaddicts like Ritter, too, and Dederich suggested that he was \u201cgetting out of the dope-fiend business\u201d. He created the \u201cpunk squad\u201d, a sort of boot camp devoted to disciplining \u201cjuvenile delinquents\u201d sent to Synanon by their parents and the courts. And the organisation began marketing the group truth telling sessions known as &#8216;The Game\u2019 as a new kind of therapy.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Synanon 1965 (Full Movie) feat. Eartha Kitt...and others\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/x1gJ01x56IM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cSynanon rebranded itself in the \u201970s from a drug treatment program to a psychotherapy program and started attracting middle-class people through the Synanon Game,\u201d says sociologist Richard Ofshe, who spent time in the organisation studying it as a non-resident. By the early \u201970s, some 3,400 squares in California, New York, and Detroit were paying cash to participate in Games. It was the heyday of the human-potential movement, when Americans were rushing off to therapists\u2019 couches, new-age movements like Est, religions like The Divine Light Mission, alternative communities like Esalen, and cults like the People\u2019s Temple and Synanon\u2013 many of which began in California.<\/p>\n<p>Dederich would often say Synanon was an \u201cexperimental society\u201d, or \u201can ever-changing group with ever-changing goals, thrusts, directions, and so on\u201d. After Dederich moved to Marin County, he started wearing overalls. The trend spread until the attire was all but mandatory. When Dederich quit his three-pack-a-day habit in \u201970, he decreed that everybody else would quit, too \u2013 a decision that had a financial benefit, since Synanon had been spending $250,000 a year on cigarettes.<\/p>\n<p>A greater financial benefit arrived in \u201974, when the organisation was granted religious status by the federal government. The idea came from Dederich\u2019s consigliere, attorney Dan Garrett, who saw a benefit beyond the tax advantage: Being a religion might mean Synanon wouldn\u2019t need to be licensed. He also pointed out that it would \u201celiminate a number of silly questions such as \u2018When do they graduate?\u2019 and \u2018Why do they have to obey?\u2019 Nobody \u2018graduates\u2019 from a religion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, Dederich loved the idea, as did the Synanon board, which unanimously approved the plan, though on one copy of Garrett\u2019s proposal, someone wrote: \u201cWho will be God?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If the first phase of Synanon was about curing addiction, and the second phase was about creating a utopian community for the middle class, the third phase was all about making money. Synanon adopted the slogan \u201cThe People Business\u201d, and what a business it was. By the end of \u201976, it had assets worth $22 million, with $8 million in annual revenue coming largely from its specialty advertising division as well as a mortgage business one member had donated and cash contributions from squares. Synanon owned 5,500 acres of property, including the six-story Del Mar Club in Santa Monica, a cluster of nearby apartment buildings, three large compounds in Marin County, and another in Badger, California, which also had an airstrip. Add to that a fleet of 200 cars, 400 motorcycles, 62 freight trucks, 20 boats, and 12 airplanes, along with $1 million invested in the stock market. By \u201977 Dederich was drawing an annual salary of $100,000 (roughly $400,000 in today\u2019s money) and received a $500,000 \u201cpre-retirement bonus\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of guys could do this thing from an old Ford roadster and sit on an orange crate. They\u2019re holy men; I\u2019m not. I need a $17,000 Cadillac,\u201d he told <i>Time<\/i> magazine that year. \u201cDid you ever play King Of The Mountain when you were a kid?\u201d he went on to say. \u201cI liked King Of The Mountain. I won. I won. I was there firstest with the mostest. I was the smartest, I was older than the rest of the guys. I won. I won. The gang does not expect me to, well let me, let me say this terribly unforgivable thing that is true of all people in position: I am not bound by the rules. I make the rules in very peculiar ways.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One rule: Don\u2019t cross Charles Dederich. When the\u00a0<em>San Francisco Examiner<\/em>\u00a0called Synanon the \u201cRacket Of The Century,\u201d the organisation sued, forcing the Hearst-run newspaper to pay $600,000 and run a front-page apology. Synanon later sued a local ABC station, which settled, and\u00a0<em>Time<\/em>\u00a0magazine, which called Synanon a \u201ckooky cult\u201d in that \u201977 story. Reporters were threatened.\u00a0<em>Time<\/em>\u2019s editor-in-chief was stopped outside his apartment by two men with shaved heads, who told him, \u201cWe are going to ruin your life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Synanon Short Film\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/THu690d7qJE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know what these people might do,\u201d Dederich said to a television reporter. \u201cI don\u2019t know what action they might take against the people responsible, their wives, their children&#8230; Bombs could be thrown into odd places, into the homes of some of the clowns who occupy high places in the\u00a0<em>Time<\/em>\u00a0organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Synanon had a private security force and formed a paramilitary group, The Imperial Marines, that developed its own type of martial arts named \u201csyn-do\u201d and by \u201978 amassed an arsenal of hundreds of guns. \u201cWe\u2019re concerned about the rising crime rate,\u201d a Synanon newsletter explained. \u201cIf trouble should occur, we\u2019re prepared to handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But if anything, Synanon was increasing the crime rate. In \u201975 three members admitted to assaulting a Marin County rancher. Dederich hailed them as heroes. Another rancher was pistol-whipped. In Santa Monica, Synanites beat up two black couples who had parked their car at a Synanon apartment building. Nonviolence, Dederich said at a press conference, \u201cwas just a position. We can change positions any time we want to\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>And he often delivered those positions through endless monologues, broadcast to Synanon facilities over \u201cThe Wire,\u201d a lower-power FM radio station. In \u201976 Dederich decreed that members should stop having kids, saying, \u201cI think children are a very bad investment.\u201d The long rant betrayed an astonishing contempt for his followers: \u201cAll the dummies, you, you, you, all of you, you all just sit there and as this organisation gets richer and fatter and more fun to be in and more powerful, you love that, but you\u2019re all alike. You\u2019re all alike. You sit there mum when I make these speeches.\u201d It revealed, too, how Dederich saw himself: \u201cI have done exactly like the rest of the guys that run the world. I could have run a state, a country, a city, it doesn\u2019t make any difference. I\u2019m one of those guys. I know that magic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After the no-children mandate, women were encouraged to have abortions. \u201cHaving an abortion is like squeezing a boil, nothing more,\u201d Dederich said. Men were pressured into getting vasectomies, 80 such operations took place in \u201976. There were literally endless, ongoing, intense attack sessions going on, focused on males who refused to get vasectomies. As soon as they gave in, they\u2019d walk into the next room, and there were doctors waiting to perform the procedure.<\/p>\n<p>Phil Ritter was disturbed by the mass sterilization. He went to the Marin County sheriff\u2019s office, thinking, \u201cSurely there had to be a law against that sort of thing.\u201d There wasn\u2019t. The authorities informed Synanon attorneys, who told Ritter not to come back, leaving his wife and child behind.<\/p>\n<p>The next big rule was handed down after Betty died in 1977. Dederich, who was 64, wanted to remarry. \u201cI sent up a flare, like any monarch of old times would have done,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cI let the word out I was available.\u201d Of the six women who applied for the opening, Dederich chose Ginny Schoren, a 31-year-old teacher at one of Synanon\u2019s schools. Shortly thereafter, Dederich decided that marriage should no longer be permanent; couples were told to split up and form new, three-year-long \u201clove matches\u201d. Within days, 230 couples had filed for divorce. Among the people filing was Ritter\u2019s wife. Making matters worse, Synanon was restricting how often Ritter could visit their three-year-old daughter. He filed a motion to be allowed to see her more.<\/p>\n<p>One day as Ritter was returning home from the supermarket, two young men approached him. Without saying a word, they beat him with wooden mallets, leaving him on the ground, bleeding, with a fractured skull. They didn\u2019t even take his wallet. The attack was among at least 18 that the California attorney general\u2019s office eventually linked to Synanon.<\/p>\n<p>Paul Morantz was one of the few who tried to warn the world about Synanon. The journalist turned lawyer first sued the organisation in \u201877 on behalf of Frances and Ed Winn, who claimed that Frances had been kidnapped, brainwashed, and tortured by the group \u201cfor purposes of financial gain\u2026 despite her emotional instability\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The story tugged at Morantz. He called one of his contacts at the Department of Public Health and asked what Synanon was licensed for. The voice on the other end of the phone dropped to a whisper. \u201cSynanon is not licensed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow can it not be licensed?\u201d asked Morantz.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t understand it either,\u201d the health official said. \u201cAnd they don\u2019t let us in.\u201d Back in the \u201960s, when Synanon was charged with running a hospital without a license, Governor Pat Brown signed a law clarifying that Dederich\u2019s brand of drug treatment wasn\u2019t medical care per se and didn\u2019t need a license. But the bill didn\u2019t specify anything about treating mental illness, which meant Synanon could be in trouble for taking in Frances. Morantz pressured Synanon to release her. When he and Ed Winn went to pick her up, they saw a sea of people with shaved heads and overalls. Smiling. It gave Morantz goose bumps.<\/p>\n<p>Something was seriously wrong. \u201cI had a sense,\u201d Morantz recalls today, \u201cthat everything in the 31 years of my life that had happened previously was all pointed toward this moment, this time, that this was going to be the test that I think I always wanted to have.\u201d Morantz effectively declared war on Synanon that day. And Synanon responded in kind.<\/p>\n<p>Rumour had it that Dederich could be heard over Synanon\u2019s private radio network, ranting, \u201cWho is this guy Morantz? Why doesn\u2019t someone break his legs?\u201d In a recording of a speech later seized by the LAPD, Dederich fumed, \u201cWe are not going to mess with the old-time \u2018turn-the-other-cheek\u2019 religious posture. We\u2019re going to \u2013 our religious posture is, \u2018Don\u2019t mess with us. You can get killed, dead \u2013 physically dead. We either have a good thing here or we don\u2019t. If we have a good thing here, then we are not going to permit people, like greedy lawyers, to destroy it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morantz knew Dederich was capable of violence. An apostate Synanon member had nearly been beaten to death. Morantz figured that his own name must be high on Dederich\u2019s hit list. Threatening phone calls were coming at all hours of the night, but what really concerned him was when the threats stopped.<\/p>\n<p>Morantz bought a shotgun. Constantly looking over his shoulder, he\u2019d check under his car for bombs before getting in. He was exhausted. As returned to his small home in Pacific Palisades the evening of October 11, \u201977, he was eager to turn on the TV and relax over Game 1 of the World Series \u2013 The Dodgers versus The Yankees. \u201cFor one moment I\u2019m not going to think about Synanon,\u201d he told himself. \u201cI\u2019m just going to watch the baseball game.\u201d Morantz placed his notebooks on the kitchen table and walked to the mail slot by his front door. Through the grill of the mailbox, he could see the outline of an unusually shaped package \u2013 a scarf, perhaps; it was hard to tell without his glasses.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5080\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/qs44r3ddfe6gxu2jlbhi.jpg.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"832\" height=\"509\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/qs44r3ddfe6gxu2jlbhi.jpg.webp 832w, https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/qs44r3ddfe6gxu2jlbhi.jpg-300x184.webp 300w, https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/qs44r3ddfe6gxu2jlbhi.jpg-768x470.webp 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 832px) 100vw, 832px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Morantz remembers not so much the pain as the rattlesnake sank its fangs into his outstretched hand, but the regret. \u201cThey don\u2019t get me with this. I\u2019m not that stupid,\u201d he was thinking. Then he heard a scream and realised it was his own. The four-and-a-half-foot reptile, its rattler removed to keep it quiet, dropped to the floor and recoiled. Morantz dashed out the back door, yelling, \u201cCall the police! Call an ambulance! I\u2019ve been bitten by a rattlesnake! It\u2019s Synanon! Synanon got me!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Word of the attack quickly went national. News anchor Walter Cronkite called it \u201cbizarre even by cult standards\u201d. In time Morantz would have his revenge, laying bare a grim tale whose genesis could be traced, appropriately enough, to an LSD experiment.<\/p>\n<p>To this day, there is disagreement over whether Dederich ordered the violence perpetrated by Synanon members or merely stoked their rage. Former Synanon attorney Phillip Burdette insists it was the latter. But three declarations, written in \u201983 by three Synanon officials in exchange for immunity from prosecution, stated that Imperial Marines prepared a \u201chit list\u201d of Synanon \u201cenemies\u201d that was approved by Dederich\u2019s assistant, Walter Lewbel. The hit list included former Synanon president Jack Hurst (whose guard dog was found hanged), Phil Ritter, and Paul Morantz. They alleged that security chief Art Warfield had directed Imperial Marine Joe Musico, a Vietnam vet, to find a hit man to kill Morantz; when Musico reported the job would cost $10,000, Synanon executives deemed the price too high and ordered the Marines to \u201ctake care of Morantz\u201d themselves.<\/p>\n<p>In a subsequent deposition, Dederich claimed to have a \u201cvery dim memory of 1977\u201d due to a series of strokes, but he said, \u201cMost of what Synanon did in \u201977, at least what I knew about, I approved of because as I pointed out before over and over again, I\u2019m one hell of a good executive and not too much ever went on in the organisation that I ran that I didn\u2019t approve of. I don\u2019t know everything that went on, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to the three declarations, Lewbel was the one who directed Musico and Alan Hubbard to attack Phil Ritter; and Lewbel who ordered Musico and Lance Kenton (the son of jazz musician Stan Kenton) to travel to Los Angeles and plant the rattlesnake in Morantz\u2019s mailbox. The day after the attack, police arrested Musico and Kenton. A month later, LA prosecutor John Watson and 30 law enforcement officials descended on Synanon\u2019s new $1 million compound in Lake Havasu to arrest Dederich on the charge of conspiracy to commit murder. They found him, according to Watson, \u201cin a stupor, staring straight ahead, an empty bottle of Chivas Regal in front of him\u201d. He was so drunk that he had to be carried to jail in a stretcher.<\/p>\n<p>In \u201980 Dederich pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit murder. He was fined $10,000, sentenced to five years of probation (Morantz agreed to let Dederich avoid prison time, owing to his poor health), and barred from having any affiliation with Synanon. Absent its charismatic leader, the group floundered. The IRS revoked its tax-exempt status and ordered Synanon to pay $17 million. In the lengthy court battle that ensued, Morantz provided hundreds of documents he\u2019d unearthed that implicated Dederich and other Synanon officials in criminal acts (those documents became the foundation of Morantz\u2019s book on Synanon, <i>From Miracle To Madness<\/i>). The court finally ruled against Synanon in \u201984, finding that it had a \u201cpolicy of terror and violence\u201d and a practice of diverting \u201ccorporate resources for the enrichment of individuals\u201d. Synanon declared bankruptcy and, in \u201991, formally dissolved, though a branch carries on in Germany.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-5081\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/TSPTR_05-08-21_627_1024x1024.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" height=\"434\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/TSPTR_05-08-21_627_1024x1024.webp 1024w, https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/TSPTR_05-08-21_627_1024x1024-300x200.webp 300w, https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/TSPTR_05-08-21_627_1024x1024-768x512.webp 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Phil Ritter eventually reunited with his wife and daughter after they left Synanon in \u201978. And Morantz still lives in Pacific Palisades. At age 72, he has neuropathy, arthritis, and a blood disease he believes may be an artifact from the snakebite attack.<\/p>\n<p>After being convicted, Dederich moved with his wife, Ginny, into a double-wide mobile home in Visalia. He died in \u201997, a few weeks shy of his 84th birthday. He was saluted on the floor of the House of Representatives by Bay Area congressman (and future Oakland mayor) Ron Dellums,<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDederich distinguished himself in the area of drug rehabilitation and amassed great wealth before his organisation was associated with violence and tax problems,\u201d declared Dellums. \u201cHis approach to rehabilitating drug addicts has become a major paradigm for drug recovery and therapeutic communities the world over.\u201d<\/p>\n<span class=\"synved-social-container synved-social-container-share\"><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-facebook nolightbox\" data-provider=\"facebook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fshindig-magazine.com%2Findex.php%3Frest_route%3D%252Fwp%252Fv2%252Fposts%252F5078&#038;t=LA%3A%20Rehab%20%26%20Rattlesnakes%20%E2%80%93%20Counter-Cultural%20musings%20from%20TSPTR.%20Dossier%20%235&#038;s=100&#038;p&#091;url&#093;=https%3A%2F%2Fshindig-magazine.com%2Findex.php%3Frest_route%3D%252Fwp%252Fv2%252Fposts%252F5078&#038;p&#091;images&#093;&#091;0&#093;=https%3A%2F%2Fshindig-magazine.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F10%2Fsynanon.jpeg&#038;p&#091;title&#093;=LA%3A%20Rehab%20%26%20Rattlesnakes%20%E2%80%93%20Counter-Cultural%20musings%20from%20TSPTR.%20Dossier%20%235\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Facebook\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/facebook.png\" \/><\/a><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-twitter nolightbox\" data-provider=\"twitter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Twitter\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fshindig-magazine.com%2Findex.php%3Frest_route%3D%252Fwp%252Fv2%252Fposts%252F5078&#038;text=New%20post%20on%20our%20site\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"twitter\" title=\"Share on Twitter\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/twitter.png\" \/><\/a><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-mail nolightbox\" data-provider=\"mail\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share by email\" href=\"mailto:?subject=LA%3A%20Rehab%20%26%20Rattlesnakes%20%E2%80%93%20Counter-Cultural%20musings%20from%20TSPTR.%20Dossier%20%235&#038;body=New%20post%20on%20our%20site:%20https%3A%2F%2Fshindig-magazine.com%2Findex.php%3Frest_route%3D%252Fwp%252Fv2%252Fposts%252F5078\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"mail\" title=\"Share by email\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/mail.png\" \/><\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the fifth of our monthly counter-cultural musings from TSPTR, we look at straightening up in LA Before Synanon there was no drug rehab. Launched in a dingy Santa Monica storefront in 1958 by Charles Dederich, it opened centres up and down California, eventually morphing into a utopian community, then a religion and finally a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[973],"class_list":["post-5078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-synanon","post_format-post-format-video"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5078"}],"version-history":[{"count":-4,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}