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Acupuncture Reported Ineffective in Treating Cocaine Addicts

Although acupuncture is widely used to treat addictive disorders, these researchers found that it had little effectiveness in a study involving 620 cocaine addicts.

Acupuncture has been used widely to treat various addictive disorders, supposedly to calm patients and reduce craving. In this carefully performed, single-blind clinical trial at 6 community clinics, researchers randomly assigned 620 paid-volunteer cocaine addicts (mean age, 39; 69% male; 208 used both opiates and cocaine) to receive auricular acupuncture or an active control treatment -- either needle insertion or relaxation training. Forty-minute treatment sessions were provided 5 times per week for 8 weeks. All participants were offered concurrent drug counseling. Abstinence was determined by urine screens performed 3 times weekly during treatment and at 3 and 6 months after treatment.

Only 45% of participants were retained for the full 8-week trial, with no significant differences among the 3 treatment groups. Abstinence did increase significantly from baseline, but there were no significant differences among groups (range of abstinence during the final week of treatment, 23% to 31%; at follow-up, 36% to 47%). Although severity of many psychosocial problems and substance-abuse problems decreased significantly during the study and at follow-up, little change was shown in readiness for treatment, medical problems, or employment. Only 20% of participants reported weekly contact with a counselor during the study.

Comment: These results indicate that acupuncture has little effectiveness in treating patients with cocaine addiction. The findings -- both the paucity of drug-free urine screens and the lack of improvement in secondary measures -- also highlight the difficulty of treating patients with this addiction. The low percentage of participants involved in weekly counseling is noteworthy.

— Gary Tucker, MD

Published in Journal Watch Psychiatry February 21, 2002

Citation(s):

Margolin A et al. Acupuncture for the treatment of cocaine addiction: A randomized controlled trial. JAMA 2002 Jan 2; 287:55-63.

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