Patheos Watermark   Religion Library: Scientology  Exploration
and Conquest  Written by: J. Gordon Melton  Without a doubt the
most controversial effort to deal with society's social ills has
been Scientology's crusade against psychiatry, especially
focused on the use of psychoactive drugs like Ritalin and
Prozac.The disagreements with psychiatry go back to the
beginning of Dianetics, which was seen in part as a way to avoid
psychiatric care.As Scientology developed, Hubbard contrasted it
and its focus on the human spirit to psychiatry and its
spiritless understanding of humanity.Over the years he had come
to believe that the major drugs used by psychiatrists were no
different than the illegal narcotics being used by drug
addicts.Many were addictive and had similar negative side
effects.Scientologists have also complained about the millions
of children given drugs to handle either poorly diagnosed
diseases or simple behavior problems in school.  While many
people who would not support Scientology otherwise co