It’s Complicated –
August 3, 2018 – Black Panthers and other activists brought the ancient Chinese practice into addiction medicine in New York in the 1970s. Despite a lack of firm evidence, it’s still popular in some communities … Daily acupuncture is a mandatory part of the addiction-recovery program at Penn North, whose staff I recently spent time with as part of a larger story on racial disparities in health. It’s not the only one to employ this unconventional approach: More than 600 addiction-recovery programs in the United States use acupuncture today, according to nada, the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association. Some people swear by acupuncture, but recovery facilities’ use of it, along with other non-proven strategies for managing addiction, has grown more controversial as America’s opioid epidemic has raged on. Medications like buprenorphine or methadone are considered the gold standard in treating opioid addiction, which still kills more than 100 people each day. The medications dramatically reduce the likelihood of death from overdose, but they are shockingly underused:
