The community of San Patrignano completely dissociates itself from the docuseries broadcast by Netflix. The narrative that emerges is summary and partial, with a narration that mainly focuses on the testimonies of detractors and vilifies, someone with legal background in civil and criminal cases ended up with rulings in favour of the Community, without clearly informing the audience of the nature of these sources.
For the sake of transparency and fairness, the Community hosted the director of the series for several days. She had the chance to talk to anyone in the community and we provided her a list of people who have lived and still live in San Patrignano. People that know very well the past and present history, so that they would be able to give her the necessary tools for an unprejudiced and informed reconstruction. This list was totally disregarded, with the exception of our therapeutic manager Antonio Boschini. They preferred to leave room for a one-sided account, apparently with the intention of satisfying the forced demonstration of preconceived theses.
From the outset, we had expressed concern about the effects that this production could have on the current 1000 guests of San Patrignano. We feared that the reconstruction of the events that took place within the community would not have been presented in a balanced and adequately contextualised manner. Unfortunately, we find that our fears were absolutely well-founded.
We are also concerned about the negative and destabilising effects on the hard work of recovery, reintegration and prevention activities, in which the community of San Patrignano has been committed for decades. The product is clearly built for commercial entertainment purposes and has a spectacularized, dramatized and simplistic approach,. It is not a serious documentary reconstruction that respects the canons of objectivity to be called such. This forced perspective could also negatively affect the large number of people and their families who unfortunately face the serious problem of drug use disorder, which is still a national emergency.
San Patrignano has always opened its doors to these people in difficulty, welcoming them, totally free of charge, in a therapeutic pathway based on principles and methods very different from those described in the docuseries, as demonstrated by several independent studies of prestigious national and international universities.
As far as we are concerned, we will continue with our commitment that has always characterized us: to be alongside all those, and their families, who embark on the path of recovery from addiction and to give our free support to those who need it.