Acupuncture as a Radical Tool for Social Change: The History of Community Acupuncture
The People’s Program
In the late sixties and early seventies, New York City, especially the Bronx, was devastated by a heroin epidemic and a failing public health system. As drug addiction was seen as a problem only affecting poor black and brown communities, the city was allocating few resources toward addiction treatment and prevention. In 1970, neighborhood activists and members of the Black Panthers and the Young Lords organized an occupation of a derelict public hospital, Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx. The activists refused to leave the hospital, which had been nicknamed the “butcher shop” until the city met their demands for improved health services, including the addition of a drug treatment program. The successful protest led to one of the country’s first Patient’s Bill of Rights, the first recorded public medical malpractice trial, and the Lincoln Detox Program, also known as the People’s Program.
Global Solidarity
The People’s Program was pioneering in that it was community led. Activists such as Mutulu Shakur, Tupac Shakur’s stepfather, and members of the Black Panther Party and Young Lords, many of which were former addicts themselves, led the drug treatment program. Encouraged by reports of acupuncture being used to treat opium addiction, the Black Panthers began their exploration into East Asian Medicine. They sought the help of Dr. Oscar Wexu and his son Mario, Canadian acupuncturists who provided the activists with scholarships to their acupuncture school. The students then took a trip to China and were inspired by the barefoot doctors, a radical new system of health-care delivery for the rural masses during the Cultural Revolution. Many of the barefoot doctors were lay people, farmers and laborers, who were trained to provide basic preventative and life-saving Eastern and Western medical care to their rural communities. These doctors ultimately inspired the founding of the World Health Organization and many other public health initiatives.
Acupuncture + Activism in the 1970’s
Shakur and his fellow newly trained acupuncturists brought their knowledge back to the Bronx. At the Lincoln Detox Center, they provided acupuncture to help ease the symptoms of heroin withdrawal in a safe space. While addiction recovery was the focus, they also treated a wide variety of health issues with acupuncture ranging from pre/postnatal issues to PTSD. The activists recognized that an individual’s health is inextricably linked to structural determinants of health, like housing, worker’s rights, and police brutality. While patients rested with needles, they were provided with public health resources, counseling, and education on political and social issues. By the late 1970’s, the activists were removed from Lincoln Hospital due to their “radical” approach, but Shakur and others formed the Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America and an acupuncture school to train a new generation of community practitioners.
Universal Treatment is NADA Problem
Shakur partnered with Dr. Michael O. Smith, a psychiatrist, acupuncturist, and addiction specialist, to develop a five point protocol on the ear for drug addiction treatment. This protocol, now referred to as the NADA protocol, named after the National Acupuncture Detox Association, included two points for calming the mind and nervous system and three points aiding the body’s detoxification organs: lungs, liver, and kidneys. The NADA protocol continues to be used today all over the world from addiction recovery centers to emergency rooms to communities affected by traumatic humanitarian crises like war and natural disasters through organizations like Acupuncturists Without Borders.
Making it Work for the Working Class
Inspired by the work at the Lincoln Detox Center, Lisa Rohleder, L.Ac. and Skip Van Meter, L. Ac., who popularized the term “community acupuncture,” founded Working Class Acupuncture in Portland, Oregon. In the early 2000’s, Rohleder and VenMeter were acupuncturists from a working class background who offered acupuncture in a public health setting. After the government grants that funded their work dried up, they struggled with switching to the standard business model of acupuncture. Charging $80-$150 per session was unaffordable for their working class community, but charging less was not a sustainable way to make a living and pay back student loans from acupuncture school. Hence the high-volume, low-cost treatment business model was born.
A Sustainable Path Forward
By seeing four patients an hour on an affordable sliding scale, Rohleder and Van Meter were able to make the same amount of revenue as if they saw one or two patients an hour but charged more. Eventually Rohleder and Van Meter founded the People’s Organization of Community Acupuncture (POCA), a non-profit that offers training, resources, and even start-up funding for community acupuncture clinics around the country. They also created POCA Tech, an acupuncture school which focuses on the community model and is a more affordable education than most acupuncture schools.
Five Point & the Legacy of Affordable Acupuncture
The legacy of the Barefoot Doctors, the People’s Program, and Working Class Acupuncture continues to inform our model of care at Five Point Holistic Health. As un/underinsured graduate students at the Pacific College of Health Sciences, Alex, Leah, Dinah, Ryan, and Celeste couldn’t afford the medicine they were preparing to practice. They knew they wanted to build a clinic around community acupuncture to make the medicine accessible to those who were otherwise priced out of East Asian Medicine. With the help of friends and mentors at POCA-informed clinics like Sage Community Health Collective and Milwaukee Community Acupuncture, the Five Point founders learned the ropes of running a community clinic. The name “Five Point” came from many factors, but one was the powerful yet simple five point NADA protocol still used daily in our clinic.
Community Acupuncture Program Changes at Five Point
Ten years later, we remain committed to providing accessible community acupuncture services and have been evaluating our current Five Point Community Acupuncture Program. The COVID-19 pandemic required us to shift away from seeing several patients per hour, but it is time to re-establish pre-covid norms. We will begin shifting to a higher volume system – 3-4 patients per hour– as the standard of care in our community room. This change will support balancing accessibility for our patients while ensuring sustainability of our Co-op. We will be in continued conversation with our community to clearly communicate upcoming changes to our Community Acupuncture Program that will go into effect in January 2025. Please stay tuned for upcoming blogs to learn more about these changes.
References & Recommended Reading, Listening, and Viewing:
Dandridge, Tenisha (2020). The Unusual Tale of Acupuncture, Racism, and African American History in the USA
Donovan, Mia (2020). Dope is Death, Documentary film and Podcast.
Lefty, Lauren (2021). For the People’s Health: Lessons from the Young Lords for Today’s New York. Museum of the City of New York Online.
Rohleder, Lisa (2013). Fractal: About Community Acupuncture.
Rohleder, Lisa, et.al (2009). Acupuncture is like Noodles: The Little Red (Cook)Book of Working Class Acupuncture.
Shakur, M., & Trinidad, U. (2022). The Seed: History of the Original Acupuncture Detoxification Program at Lincoln Hospital. Souls, 23(1–2), 36–48.