The Radical History of Community Acupuncture
Community Acupuncture has a rich history full of brave, stubborn, deeply dedicated activist-practitioners like Miriam Lee and the Black Panthers and Young Lords at Lincoln Detox in New York who were steadfast in their determination to create healing for themselves and their communities. NADA and POCA are two fantastic organizations that promote the expansion of access to affordable acupuncture.
NADA is the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association. NADA trains acu-detox specialists in a simple, powerful acupuncture protocol so that more people can get acupuncture and so that trusted members of their community can be the ones giving it such as peers, mentors, teachers, social workers, etc.
POCA is The People's Organization of Community Acupuncture. POCA is a member-run 501(c)(6) non-profit organization whose mission is to work cooperatively to increase accessibility to and availability of affordable group acupuncture treatments. We envision a world in which every community has access to local, affordable acupuncture to reduce collective and individual suffering and nurture resilience. POCA has been supporting and growing community acupuncture since 2006 and has created a technical school for regular people to become acupuncturists and serve their community
Community Acupuncture would not be where it is today without the hard work and dedication of many POCA members. Community Acupuncture SoBu is a proud member of POCA and sustainer of ORCCA (Oregon College of Community Acupuncture formerly POCA Technical Institute.)
The Radical History of Community Acupuncture in a Nutshell
Eana Meng is a historian of medicine and a physician in training. Her research has traced the lesser known histories of the use of acupuncture by American activists (including those in the Black revolutionary movement) since the 1970s and the legacies that emerge from them, which include a five point ear acupuncture protocol currently used around the world for substance use and behavior health conditions. She is interested in the histories that sit at the intersection of radical politics of health, integrative/alternative healing modalities, community healthcare, the opioid crisis and pain, and crucial dimensions of race, gender, and class. She runs a blog at https://www.ofpartandparcel.com/.
Dope is Death
The story of how Dr. Mutulu Shakur, stepfather of Tupac Shakur, along with fellow Black Panthers and the Young Lords, combined community health with radical politics to create the first acupuncture detoxification program in America in 1973 - a visionary project eventually deemed too dangerous to exist. Full film available to stream on Amazon and iTunes.
Working Class Acupuncture
The community acupuncture movement owes a LOT to the folks at Working Class Acupuncture in Portland OR. The seeds they planted, and continue to plant, have flourished throughout the entire United States and even abroad.
They have even started a school, the Oregon College of Community Acupuncture, the only one of it's kind that trains folks specifically in community style and liberation acupuncture. Check out the short documentary below. It's interesting - we promise!
The Calmest Revolution Ever Staged
A community acupuncture documentary
Vermont Community Acupuncture Clinics
Click on the town to find the clinic there
Community acupuncture clinics throughout the United States
Special thanks to West Philly Community Acupuncture for making this awesome resource!
Community acupuncture is healthcare reform because...
- it is inclusive. By making the same service available to people with different financial resources, community acupuncture breaks down the barriers of classism in health care.
- it is low-tech and low-cost. MRIs and CAT scans certainly have their place in health care, but our growing dependence on expensive technologies is part of what is driving up costs. Community acupuncture reverses this trend.
- it is preventative. Community acupuncture can precisely target the intersection of stress and disease, a zone that the big guns of conventional medicine miss by a mile. When acupuncture is cheap enough for patients to use in unlimited quantities, no one has to wait to get sick in order to use it.
- for at least some patients, it can reduce their dependence on Big Pharma. Not everyone can use acupuncture to get off their medications, but when it comes to painkillers, sleep aids, and anti-anxiety drugs, acupuncture is worth trying as a substitute.
- it does not require the approval or the participation of Big Insurance. A community acupuncture clinic depends on the support of its local community, not a distant, enormous, for-profit corporation.
- it is easy to understand and easy to use. Patients do not have to wade through a maze of bureaucracy to get care.
- it creates jobs rather than profits.
- it breaks down the isolation that is rampant not only in health care, but throughout American culture.
- it is radically transparent and radically simple. Acupuncture depends so much on the internal resources of the patient and so little on external props that it’s basically function without form — a nice change from health care that is form without function. All acupuncture is, is what it does. And all it needs are needles, cotton balls, and stillness.
- and finally, because it does not need the government or anyone else to fund it. If community acupuncture were readily available, it could save the health care system enormous sums of money by preventing the need for hospitalizations, surgeries, and medication. It would be wonderful if the government recognized this potential — but even if it doesn’t, community acupuncture will continue to grow exponentially. Community acupuncture is truly a grassroots movement, and it flourishes outside of all existing systems. All that community acupuncture needs is more patients and more practitioners who are willing to try it and then apply it in their communities as we have applied it in ours. It is our hope that this book will help reach these people. Thank you for reading it.
excerpt from Acupuncture is Like Noodles: The Little Red (Cook)Book of Working Class Acupuncture, by Lisa Rohleder, Et. Al. pp 125 & 126. www.WorkingCIassAcupuncture.org
