Possible Benefits

Stopping Addiction

A research team led by Arthur Margolin, Ph.D., at Yale University School of Medicine conducted a trial to find out if acupuncture could really help stop cocaine addiction when combined with other treatments. The trial took 82 dually-addicted participants and split them into three groups. In one group they received treatment through acupuncture at four points in the outer ear, in the second group they also received acupuncture for treatment but in a different set of four points in the outer ear they were believed not to help with addiction, and the last group received treatment through a relaxation group. These groups meet five times a week for eight weeks while also giving urine samples three times a week to see if cocaine was used. After the trial was completed they had clear results of what worked best. Of the participants who received acupuncture with the four points believed to help by the eighth week, 53.8 percent tested negative for cocaine in their system. In the group that got acupuncture but in four spots that were thought to not help with addiction by week 8 23.5 percent tested negative for cocaine and in the relaxation group only 9.1 percent of the group were clean by week 8 (“Study Finds”).