Introduction

Residues of many drugs - including LSD, phencyclidine, cocaine, marijuana and diazepam - are known to accumulate in the body. These compounds may be retained for extended periods of time, and are especially abundant in long-term, hard core drug users.

Persistent symptoms associated with drug abuse often linger long after abuse has ceased. The consideration that accumulated residues may play a role in the persistence of symptoms led to the development of a program aimed at reducing levels of foreign compounds in the body and thereby assisting in the recovery of the individual.

This detoxification program is one component of the Narconon drug rehabilitation program. It has been empirically observed that clients are more alert and do better on the balance of the Narconon program after completing the detoxification component.

We were interested in evaluating the effects of the detoxification program on both the elimination of drug metabolites and the alleviation of symptomatic complaints. Therefore, we measured the levels of various drug metabolites in both sweat and urine over the course of the detoxification program in eight clients with long-term drug abuse problems.

We also monitored the change in severity of self-reported symptoms in a series of 249 clients with a history of drug abuse who were treated with this detoxification program.