Positive results in helping people recover from drug addiction may give acupuncture its firmest stamp of approval. For over 20 years, Lincoln Hospital in New York City, has been treating addicts with a combination of acupuncture and counseling. Over 60 percent of patients stay in the program for more than three months--an enviable record in a field where high drop out rates are the rule, especially since many are not seeking rehabilitation on their own but have been ordered to do so by a judge. Today, the Lincoln model is being used in more than 400 detoxification programs in the United States and Europe.
From New York to California, criminal justice officials are sending addicts for court-approved acupuncture treatments in an effort to stem exploding jail populations and the loss of money from addicts who get stuck in the system's revolving door. In cities where these programs exist, people arrested for felony drug possession are given the choice of standing trial or going for drug treatment, which includes acupuncture. After such a program was used in Miami for two years, officials there reported that only three percent of the first-time offenders who went through the program were arrested in the year after they graduated (the usual rearrest rate is 40 to 60 percent).
An Oregon law mandates that no addict enter methadone treatment unless he has first tried acupuncture and counseling for a year and failed. The executive director of the National Association of Criminal Justice Planners says he has promoted drug court programs that feature acupuncture to association members.
Despite all this, critics claim enthusiasm for using acupuncture for drug and alcohol abusers lacks strong, scientific support. Proponents defend such protests by pointing to two preliminary studies. One in the British medical journal, The Lancet in 1989, suggests that acupuncture can help alcoholics quit. And the other one, performed at the Yale University School of Medicine, indicates cocaine addicts, too, are helped by acupuncture.
Furthermore, those who favor acupuncture for substance abuse stress that the therapy is only part of the treatment picture. Acupuncture should be used to give physical relief from the cravings and withdrawal symptoms associated with quitting an addiction, thus allowing patients to concentrate on the critical counseling part of the program.
