SAMANTHA MONROE - STRAIGHT, INC. - 1981-1983

If this is your first visit to this site having just seen The Montel Williams investigative report on teen rehabs, you are probably wondering whether Straight, Inc. is still in operation, how widespread was the abuse, who is responsible for the abuse, and what you can do. From 1976 to 1993 Straight, Inc., a Pinellas County, Florida-based corporation, was the largest juvenile drug rehabilitation chain in the world. Probably as many as 50,000 white teenagers entered the program. Samantha "Sammie" Monroe (the guest Montel interviewed who had been in Straight) was not the only kid severely abused at Straight. Read Leigh Bright's declaration of torture; the torture of Marcie Sizemore; the torture of Bobby; the torture of a boy named Donald. Straight was founded and operated by Melvin and Betty Sembler. As our country adopts the Turbin Torture Amendment you should be advised that George W. Bush appointed Melvin Sembler as the current US Ambassador to Italy! Ambassador Sembler brags on his state department web page that he and Betty successfully treated 12,000 Straight graduates. One reason for Straight's popularity was its endorsement by Ronald and Nancy Reagan, and the president's father, George H. W. Bush.

Straight, Inc. closed in 1993 on the heels of state investigations and law suits [the FBI investigated Straight in 1993 for alleged financial fraud but no indictments were handed down], but Straight Foundation, Inc., the education arm of Straight, continues to operate as a national and international drug policy think tank under the name Drug Free America Foundation. The president's brother, Governor Jeb Bush, and other high-level Republicans serve on DFAF's Advisory Board. Today Betty Sembler and other former Straight officials are directors for Operation PAR, another Pinellas County, Florida-based drug rehab program. PAR has never been accused of abuse. There are many second-generation Straights still in operation (see flow chart [1]) and some of these have been accused of abuse (See Orlando Weekly on SAFE, New Times on Growing Together, Kids of North Jersey, sodomy in Growing Together host home.)

You can reach Ambassador Sembler at the US Embassy-Italy, main switchboard (+39) 06.46741 or Public Information Office, or at his place of business The Sembler Company, (727) 384-6000. You can reach Betty Sembler at Operation PAR, 1-888-PAR-NEXT. If you are an attorney or aid for Ambassador Sembler tell him that Ken Kay informed The Montel Show that WWASPS denies all charges and ask the ambassador if he will make any public statement about the show. As for sending your kids overseas Montel said this, "any parent that signs his kids over to another and lets that other take his kids out of country has committed a crime." Amen and thank you, Montel!!! If you are Sammie Monroe (or her sisters) or the former WWASPS clients and parents who appeared--thank you for a job well done.!!! Author Maia Szalavitz tied it all together--no one could have done a better job in the few moments she had. We eagerly anticipate her forthcoming book. To all others: there's a discussion forum on Straight here. Also there are three protests scheduled for this quarter. Check back to the main page for details. Come join the protests!

Footnotes

(Note: An edited version of this column originally appeared on FoxNews.com. It ran for two weeks. After a representative from Straight contacted Fox with concerns about accuracy, the column was pulled. As yet, no one has articulated to me what aspects of the column have been challenged. I stand by my reporting. That's why I'm reposting the column here.)

In 1980, when Samantha Monroe was 13, a classmate passed out mini bottles of booze, similar to the kind served on airplanes. Samantha was given one, but quickly flushed it down a toilet when school officials were notified. A local detective was called in. That detective told Samantha’s parents he suspected she had a drug problem. That she’d been “clean” when school officials confronted her, he said, was a fluke. He suggested they enroll her in the Sarasota branch of Straight, Inc., an aggressive drub rehab center for teens. The detective also happened to sit on the board of Straight Sarasota.

Samantha spent the next two years of her life surviving Straight. She was beaten, starved, and denied toilet privileges for days on end. She describes her “humble pants,” a punishment that forced her to wear the same pants for six weeks at a time. Because she was allowed just one shower a week, the pants often filled with feces, urine and menstrual blood. Often she was confined to her “timeout” closet for days. She gnawed through her cheek during those sessions, hoping she’d bleed to death. She says that after she was raped by a counselor she calls Rob, “the wonderful state of Florida paid for and forced me to have an abortion.”

There are hundreds of stories like Samantha’s. Wes Fager enrolled his son in a Springfield, VA chapter of Straight on the advice of a high school guidance counselor. Fager didn’t see his son again until three months later after he’d escaped – and developed severe mental illness. Since then, Fager’s set out to clear the air on Straight. He has accumulated stories like Samantha’s and his son’s on a clearinghouse website. He’s collected stories of suicides and attempted suicides, rapes, forced abortions, molestations, physical abuse, lawsuits, court testimonies and extensive documentation of profound psychological abuse at Straight chapters all over the country.

Today, Straight’s founders, Mel and Betty Sembler, have enormous influence over U.S. drug policy. They serve on the boards of most every major domestic anti-drug program. They’re behind efforts to defeat medicinal marijuana initiatives all over the country. They’re also proud and unrepentant about Straight, Inc. – they mention their influence upon its founding in their official bios (here and here) -- despite the horrors that have surfaced about the program’s history. As more and more U.S. states turn to mandatory treatment instead of incarceration for minor drug offenses, as the trend toward “boot camp” style rehab centers grows more and more en vogue, and as Mel and Betty Sembler continue to flex political muscle in the power corridors of the drug war, the story of Straight, Incorporated is one worth hearing.

Straight was spun off from an earlier Florida rehab program called The Seed, established in 1972. After a Congressional investigation of The Seed turned up evidence of brainwashing and cult-like mind control tactics, Congress cut The Seed’s funding. But a Florida Congressman named Bill Young persisted. He found advocates in Republican boosters Mel and Betty Sembler, and persuaded them to start a similar rehab center in St. Petersburg, which they called “Straight, Incorporated.”

Despite allegations of abuse from escaped members and pending lawsuits, over the next fifteen years Straight, Inc. won laudatory praise in Republican circles. Luminaries from Nancy Reagan to Princess Diana visited Straight branches and touted their successes (though by most estimates only about 25% of Straight “clients” ever completed the program). Straight went on to open affiliate branches all over the country, including Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Texas and Georgia.

Soon enough, Straight’s tactics caught up to it in the courts, if not with its political cheerleaders. A college student won a false imprisonment claim of $220,000 in 1983, and another claim cost Straight, Inc. $721,000 in 1990. A Straight, Inc. spin-off called “Kids of North Jersey” settled a $4.5 million abuse claim in 2000. Straight chapters across the country began to shut down, culminating with the last branch in Atlanta closing in 1993.

But the Straight philosophy was far from finished. Many chapters and directors reopened new clinics that employed the same tactics under different names -- such as “KIDS,” “Growing Together,” and “SAFE,” the latter having been visited and praised by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, despite the fact that a Miami television station reported widespread Straight-like abuse at the facility in a 2000 expose.

Cult expert and intervention specialist Rick Ross says there’s an unfortunate market for “rehab” centers that take burdensome children off the hands of troubled parents. “It amazes me that despite the pattern of complaints and abuse allegations, Straight chapters can simply change their names and continue to operate,” he says.

As the bad publicity and lawsuit losses mounted throughout the 1990’s, the umbrella organization Straight, Inc. changed its name in 1996 to the Drug Free America Foundation, which thrives today under federal subsidies, including $400,000 in the year 2000 and $320,000 from the Small Business Administration.

Most troubling, however, is the considerable and continuing political clout of Straight, Inc.’s founders. Former President Bush once shot a television commercial for DFAF, and designated the Semblers’ program as one of his “thousand points of light.”

Long a presence in Florida Republican circles, Mel Sembler was tapped as ambassador to Australia in 1989. Today he serves the younger President Bush as ambassador to Italy, and he served on the board of the 2000 Republican National Convention.

Betty Sembler co-chaired Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s campaign committee. In return, the governor declared August 8, 2000 “Betty Sembler Day” in Florida, due, he said, to her work “protecting children from the dangers of drugs.” She also serves on the board of DARE, the largely failed anti-drug program for elementary school students.

DFAF also worked with then-governor Bush on anti-drug programs in Texas, and today claims to have his ear on national drug policy as well. Indeed, Arizona prosecutor and Sembler favorite Rick Romley was on President Bush’s short list for drug czar. Though Romley wasn’t nominated, Bush did tap staunch drug warrior John Walters, which caused Betty Sembler to remark, “ . . .we have lacked the leadership and support of the White House . . . until now.”

The cult expert Ross, a self-described Republican, is awed at the adulation still heaped on the Semblers. “It’s really shocking,” he says, “that the Semblers are still lauded and honored after all that’s come out about their organization.”

Staunch drug warriors like the Semblers believe a win-at-all-costs approach is the only way to remove the scourge of drugs from society. Such is why they can be unrepentant about the lives destroyed within the walls of Straight facilities, and in fact still boast that a program they founded “cured” 12,000 teens of drug abuse.

Last year, a reporter from Canadian marijuana advocacy magazine Cannabis Culture asked Betty Sembler in person about the horror stories he’d read from Straight survivors. Sembler replied, “They should get a life. I am proud of everything we have done. There's nothing to apologize for. The legalizers are the ones who should be apologizing.”

That’s the attitude of the drug war’s power duo. Shattered lives, suicides, forced abortions, fractured psyches – all necessary casualties of the drug war, and nothing to apologize for.

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Sammie Monroe barred from DFAF. Samantha Monroe is the executive director of the newly founded SAFEYnet--an organization formed to protect the rights of youthful clients in Western rehabilitation programs. What we heard is that one day during the week of September 9, 2002 Ms. Monroe stopped by the Drug Free America Foundation (DFAF) to ask for a copy of their 990 tax returns. DFAF used to be called Straight, Inc.--an organization that under the Straight name treated the nation's youth for drug addiction. Straight, Inc. has been accused of child abuse all over the place. Today DFAF is no longer in the treatment business; rather it's sort of like a think tank for American drug policy. But it is a charity and doesn't pay taxes. The federal government granted DFAF over $300,000 to do whatever it is they do. But almost all money the federal government has was gotten from taxes from businesses and from citizens like Sammie Monroe. So Sammie had stopped by DFAF apparently to learn first-hand of how her tax dollars are being spent. If you are a 501 3(c) tax exempt organization you are required by law to give copies of your tax forms to members of the public upon request (of course you can charge a reasonable amount for the Xeroxing process). Well things got a bit messy with Sammie not getting the requested forms. A police officer was summoned. And now Samantha has been sent a letter from Calvina Fay, the executive director of DFAF, dated September 16, 2002 which declares, "Pursuant to Section 810.08, Florida Statutes, you are hereby notified your license to enter our facilities at the below address is immediately revoked and you are warned that if you enter our facilities again, we will invoke every legal remedy available to us. Please govern yourself accordingly." 

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May 20, 2002

SAMMIE MONROE Of all the

SAMMIE MONROE

Of all the firsthand accounts of Straight, Incorporated I've gotten over the past week (click here to read what I'm talking about), this one is probably the most moving and heartbreaking. Sammie Monroe was enrolled in Straight in 1981 at the age of 12, due mostly to neglective parents. What happened from there is probably best told in her own words. I'll warn you, there's some pretty uncomfortable reading ahead.

Your name? Samantha M Monroe

Your dates of affiliation with Straight, Inc., or one of its relative organizations.

1981 through 1983.

How did you come to be admitted to the program?

My mother was loosing her kids to DCFS (HRS) for abuse. She thought what she was doing was right. (Letting her husband beat and molest us) She met the detective at my middle school. I was hanging out with some kids at school when one of them gave us all airline bottles of alcohol. 1 each. Some one told on us and we were all brought to the office. I flushed mine in the toilet and was never actually caught with anything… unfortunately they thought I was flushing drugs. The detective, a straight dad, told my mother there was a place for me. And that was that. She told me I was going to my father’s. How did she get me into the bldg.? She told me it was the travel agency, and we were stopping for tickets. I entered Straight that day. Penny and Debbie were my intake counselors. I remember going in during the daytime and then it was time to go home. The intake took at least 10 hours and it wasn’t nice. I was told my parents didn’t want me and that this was my last chance before I die. I was shocked. They told me they knew I used drugs, people in there had already told my parents. I was told I would only be there for two weeks, then I could go to school and go home. They told me that I needed to be there. They loved me. I admitted to using every drug off the list, I wanted to leave. I was scared I was tired and I was hungry. I also had to pee. So I signed myself in.

Please describe -- in as much detail with which you're comfortable -- your experiences in the program.

It’s is the same story over and over. I am not the only person to experience it. My story is not unique, so I’ll give you one example of 14 days in “time out.” I had just returned from a split. I got caught in California. I was flown back to Miami hog tied and brought back to the program. I fought all the way home from Miami to Sarasota. I tried to get loose and almost succeeded. I was full of rage. I was tricked. I was promised that if I returned home I wouldn’t have to go back to Straight. So There I stood in front of group. 200 kids flapping their arms and confronting me. You are a whore! You are a spoiled brat! You put your mother through so much! You are a looser. These words were repeated as well as the typical shit of, unfold your arms. Stand up straight face your peers. I was held in place by three people, one on each arm and one on my belt loop. We stood there together, me the cop out, and them my captors. They held my arms so tight digging their nails into me. I couldn’t ask them to stop. “NO TALKING” YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO ADDRESS THESE PEOPLE”

Then they wanted me to apologize.

NO FUCKING WAY! For what? Escaping this hell hole? I fought. I started a spaz session. I yelled back. SLAP! I was spit on I spit back. COVER HER MOUTH! I was hit. I went off. It took 7 or 8 girls to get me down and hold me down. I seem to recall that I was restrained by some guys too. I was and am amazingly strong for my size. I was a fighter. I remember they sat on me for the rest of the day. I became real good at floating past the pain. I actually lifted out of my body and the time would float by. But this time was different. The kids were angry at me and the pain was too much. Chris was always chosen to sit on you because she was FAT I mean 200 lbs FAT! She was on my chest I couldn’t breath I was panicking I couldn’t get away from it. I couldn’t rock out. In my head, I forgot where I was. I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t breathe. Every time I would scream out I couldn’t catch my breath. I started to fight, bite, kick. I was disrupting everything. So staff brought me from group to the Time Out room (TO). I was sat on in there.

From that time on I have no recollection of how long I was in there except I was keeping track by the skin I removed from my fingers around the cuticle. I would work one finger one day at a time. I used the blood from that and the inside of my mouth to spit on the people coming in the room. I remember that when I finally complied I had no skin left to bite off and that I resorted to picking the scabs in group to keep quiet and awake as well as putting my fingers into my eyes to make them water so they would not close. I also bit the inside of my mouth to keep awake.

Here is what happened inside that room:

First day I was sat on all day. I slept in the building and staff stayed there confronting me. I was not a good girl, I was MAD, I was beyond reasonable, I was out of control. I was a caged animal who did not want to be hurt any more. I fought, I spazed, I spit, I bit. I did it all. They were afraid to let me out of the room. I think they didn’t know what I would do if given the chance. I remember not getting much sleep because they would wake me a lot. The next few days were all squished together. I was forced to exercise. They would grab my arms and simulate Jumping Jacks with me and laugh at the fact that I would go limp when they tried to force me. I was made to do pushups until I couldn’t get up then they would yell and grab my belt loop and pull me up and drop me down. They laughed at this too. I didn’t cry. Staff would have a group and they would keep me in then, too, with the door open sitting on me forcing me to listen. I would spaz and staff would ask the group who has something to say to Samantha?

Here we go: 3-6 kids at a time allowed the luck to vent their own anger onto me. My behavior helped many kids get to the next step. It was easy to target me. I reacted. Staff loved the drama, otherwise they wouldn’t instigate these confrontations.

I wasn’t allowed to go to the toilet so eventually I pissed myself and I was forced to sit in it. I got a rash from that. I had bruises all over me. I know they screwed up my back and neck.

Ok so back to TO. It had to be at least a week since my return because I was allowed to go home with the staff. I know it was staff because they had their own apartment. No parents. One of the 7th steppers at home was nice to me, she let me eat and shower. I really liked her. She drove a VW convertible. But she only shared the house with the others and they were not as nice, they confronted that nice girl and I never saw her again. I always wanted to leave the building. So I would stop spazing just about the time I would hear the serenity prayer and Our Father. I never wanted to come back. For the next couple of days I remember being carried into the building by my old-comer and the staff. I was OK until we would exit off of I75 then I would freak. I remember trying to open the car door but there were people, between me, and the door. I wanted to jump out. I didn’t want to be there, I knew that I was going back into TO. It was like this for days. Arrive to the bldg. Go to TO get confronted get sat on and get hurt. Say the, Our Father and leave. It was my life for a while.

Then one day I just quit. I sat quietly, held my knees, and just sat there. Rocking and humming I could escape again. I could float. I remember flinching to the slightest movement. I had detached. Then one day I woke up and came to. Mrs. Hunt and a few of the ladies came into the TO. It had to be a Friday because the outside room was set up for the parents meeting. Us on one side facing our parents. No one was there. No clients. The room was empty except for Mrs. Hunt and some Straight moms. The look on her face was surprise. I was taken to the bathroom and I took off all of my clothes. I was given a bucket and some soap I was allowed to wash. I was given some clean pants and a shirt. As well as panties and a bra. No shoes. I don’t know why I remember no shoes but it sticks. I was taken back to time out and I remember someone must have cleaned that room because it smelt like pine cleaner. It was choking. The door was left open and there was someone at the door sitting in a chair. They talked to me about so much I can’t remember about what but I remember becoming real attached to Mrs. Hunt. Then she left and I sat quietly in TO listening to the group and parents say I LOVE YOU

Posted by Radley Balko on May 20, 2002

REFERRALS: CAICA is not a referral agency. CAICA does not refer to or promote facilities or transport companies for children or teens. CAICA warns parents that the parent pay / parent choice programs ie. Residential Treatment Centers, Therapeutic Boarding Schools, Behavior Modification Programs, Christian Programs, Positive Peer Culture Programs, etc., are not regulated by the Federal Government and that it is a "Buyer Beware" industry. CAICA provides the following for parents: Message to Parents, Help for Distraught and Desperate Parents, and Questions to Ask and Warning Signs.

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