There’s an interesting piece in the Baltimore Sun today about how acupuncture is helping some inmates in the Baltimore City Detention Center get and stay sober. ”I’ve done buprenorphine and methadone, but neither one of them could compare to those needles,” said Derrick Brooks, 42, who’s battled heroin his entire adult life. “Those needles put you in touch with stuff that’s within you that no pill or nothing else could do.”

District Judge Jamey H. Hueston thinks every addict should try it. “I am a huge fan of acupuncture,” said Hueston, who presides over the city’s drug court. “I have sent people in there kicking and screaming, resentful and scowling at me. And later they say, ‘Judge, thank you.’”

In a Yale University study published in the August 14 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, cocaine addicts who received auricular acupuncture—needles inserted into specific parts of the outer ear—were significantly more likely to have cocaine-negative urine screens over the course of the study compared to those in control groups. Still, like just about every other tool to combat addiction, acupuncture doesn’t appear to work for everyone.

(Since I don’t get to write a post about acupuncture every day, I’ll take this time to plug the work of my stepmother, a terrific acupuncturist in Scottsdale, Arizona.) =)