Drug abuse 'demonic'
2003-02-20 20:40
Elsabe Brits
Cape Town - All forms of drug abuse is demonic, says Pastor Sphocles Nissiotis head of Noupoort Christian Centre for drug and alcohol rehabilitation.
He was commenting on a media report that an epileptic patient's medication was taken away from him.
Nissiotis said the particular patient "had epileptic fits whenever he had to work", but soon afterwards was ready to "make passes" at female patients.
On allegations that patients' antidepressants were taken away, Nissiotis said the centre removed only mind-altering medication, because management believed that the patients should be "weaned" from it.
He said psychiatric treatment turned people into "drugged cabbages", placed them in "emotional straightjackets", let them "walk about like robots", and simply suppressed problems. He said psychiatry regarded "humans as animals".
Nissiotis played down allegations that personnel manager and head of the Noupoort residence Tokkie van Wyk took away patients' medication and stored it in a cupboard.
He said only vitamin tablets, antihistamines and one other tablet, which a patient had refused to take, were found in Van Wyk's cupboard.
Scrubbed with steel wool
Van Wyk allegedly also scrubbed a young patient with steel wool to remove Satanist signs from his upper body and arms. A monitor later scrubbed the same patient with a brush.
Nissiotis said this was done because the patient refused to do it, and that the patient did not experience the scrubbing as traumatic.
Nissiotis agreed to take a lie detection test "so that the world could see who was telling the truth", he or his former righthand, Chris Everitt, who has become his greatest adversary.
Send e-mail to reporter
- Die Burger Oos