Distillations – Treating America’s Opioid Addiction Part 2: Synanon and the Tunnel Back to the Human Race – Part 2 focuses on a controversial rehabilitation program called Synanon, which became the first significant therapeutic community for opioid addiction. From the time it opened its doors in 1958, it seemed to do what no other hospital, prison or sanitarium had done before: cure the supposedly incurable heroin addict. But over the years its changing methods became increasingly questionable, and the controversy would ultimately lead to its demise. Despite its faults, Synanon had a profound influence on subsequent generations of drug treatment programs-many of which still exist today.