Can Acupuncture Help Overcome Cocaine Addiction?

Cocaine is a drug that can become addictive in many users. Presently there is no single therapy that can help every cocaine user easily recover from addiction. Some substance abuse treatment clinics in the United States are giving their clients acupuncture treatments, specifically auricular acupuncture, which involves planting needles in the outer ear. Several small studies have found beneficial effects when testing acupuncture as an aid in breaking cocaine addiction, while others have found no such benefit. These conflicting results may in part be due to the difficulty inherent in designing controlled studies to assess the impact of acupuncture. Enter researchers at Yale University who have developed a sophisticated study based on a protocol created by the U.S. National Acupuncture Detoxification Association.

Researchers recruited 82 subjects from community-based methadone clinics (35 female, 47 male), all of whom were recovering from cocaine addiction and receiving methadone. The subjects, whom the researchers described as "relatively difficult to treat," were divided into the following three groups:

• 28 subjects received acupuncture
• 27 subjects received fake acupuncture
• 27 subjects received relaxation therapy

The study lasted for eight weeks. Researchers found that subjects given acupuncture were significantly less likely than others to use cocaine. No serious side effects were reported by the researchers.

Despite the limitations of this study, acupuncture's relatively low cost and toxicity may make it a useful option as part of recovery therapy for some people addicted to cocaine and, possibly, other substances. Hopefully further anti-addiction research will be conducted into this promising therapy.

Archives of Internal Medicine 2000;160:2305-2312.

From Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange (CATIE). For more information visit CATIE's Information Network at http://www.catie.ca.