Needling Criminals
by Sarah Swanson
It's hard to believe that four needles in
your ear can help cure a drug addiction.
But that's what many drug courts around the U.S. have discovered. Although the validity behind the treatment is apparent from the widespread use, many of the programs are struggling to find funding.
David Eisen, director of Portland Addictions Acupuncture Center, says there are 350 drug courts, which are responsible for handling most drug-related offenses around the U.S., and eighty percent of them utilize acupuncture in their drug cessation programs.
Douglas County, Oregon, has a drug facility that focuses on acupuncture and counseling. Acupuncturist Peggy Johnston and Circuit Court Judge Robert Millikan created Adapt, a drug treatment and correction facility, through the Douglas County drug court two years ago.
"The program is a by-product of the harsh penalties for drug arrests," says Johnston, licensed acupuncturist with offices in Eugene and Roseburg, and staff acupuncturist for the Adapt program. "The drug courts were created because the prisons were filling up." Johnston explains that the option between entering the one-year rehabilitation program or going to court and possibly prison is given to people arrested for minor crimes involving possession of illegal drugs and drug-related violence.
A team, including Judge Millikan, Johnston, a district attorney, a prosecuting attorney, and a counselor, works together to insure the success of the program. According to Johnston, the program was based on protocol established in Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx where the first treatment facility of this sort started.
She explains that the program is divided into four phases, with acupuncture being performed in the first two. For the first ninety days, Johnston uses four-needle protocol, in which she places four needles into the patients' ears for an average of forty-five minutes. If the patients make it through phase one successfully, meaning they have continually come to class and have had clean urination analyses (U.A.), they move into phases two and three. The entire program includes intensive counseling.
The program is used to treat drug addictions ranging from methamphetamines to marijuana. Johnston says she also treats heroine addicts and alcoholics occasionally.
Like many acupuncture programs around the U.S., the Douglas County program has received funding from a variety of sources. "It's a patchwork kind of thing," Johnston says. For the first six months the funding came from the sheriff's department, but currently funds come from the County Commissioner's office.
Johnston explains that a similar program in Eugene, Oregon closed down because of lack of funding. Despite this, some Eugene health clinics still offers acupuncture treatment for drug addiction. For example, it is done on a voluntary basis through the White Bird Clinic where Johnston works once a week. Johnston says that the Douglas County program might soon meet the same fate as the Eugene program. "July will be out last month, until funding is reestablished," Johnston says.
Although funding such programs often seems to be a problem, it isn't because the drug courts lack money. "Drug courts don't have a lack of funding anywhere in the Untied Sates," Eisen says.
There might be a number of reasons acupuncture programs are losing their funding. Jay Renaud, publisher of Guidepoints, a monthly publication for acupuncturist professionals, connects the lack of funding in Oregon with the requirement that an acupuncturist working for the state must be licensed, whereas, in other states, nurses and physicians can get ear-point acupuncture specialty training in as little as seventy hours. "Licensed acupuncturists are more expensive," Renaud says.
On a broader scale, Renaud says the problem could be related to two important sources. First, he says, it has to do with a lack of government support for drug and alcohol addiction treatment in general. "The whole national expenditure for drug and alcohol treatment has gone down in the last eight to ten years," he explains. He says another reason is that acupuncture is still not well known to the general public and very little literature about the treatment is available to people.
Looking into the future, the use of acupuncture in drug courts won't disappear entirely; however, it may have to fight to stay alive.