Powerful and mysterious: Community Acupuncture - changing the face of health care

This is an excerpt from Larry Gatti, community acupuncturist in Tucson, Arizona, writing about the importance of an upcoming Community Acupuncture Network conference. Punks = acupuncturists

It is the culmination of a vision first manifested in Portland, Oregon: accessible acupuncture for people of ordinary income. And that vision has proven to be contagious, spreading from mind to mind first nationally and now across the globe.

From punks to the people, community acupuncture is a radical social movement that is at once challenging the professional infrastructure and branding apparatus of acupuncture the product while creating a viable health care alternative for both practitioners as well as entire communities. And it is set within the context of social change, of digging at the roots of violence and exploitation. Of healing not only bodies and minds, but entire communities as well. The movement continues to evolve. In other words, we are at the end of the beginning of the community acupuncture revolution.

Is revolution too strong a word? I think not. I mean, lets take a brief look at what acupuncture can do. Not how it works using traditional or contemporary western medical explanatory models, but what it can actually do in peoples lives.

It has the potential to reduce or eliminate harmful drugs in the management of pain and disease simultaneously relieving the stress and strain on organ systems while also improving dramatically the quality of life in an individual and their family and friends.

It can handle many acute painful conditions bypassing the need for those toxic drugs reframing the very basis of what it means in our culture to take care of oneself after injury or illness. It can effectively manage depression and anxiety, again reducing or eliminating the need for powerful, mind altering drugs that most certainly have a place in many peoples care plan, but again limiting dosage.

It can breathe life and inspiration into people rather than drugging them up or doping them out of physical, emotional or mental pain. Acupuncture creates possibilities. And lets not forget that many of us do not have access to insurance that covers these drugs or basic health care and that the cost of managing pain and disease can and does bankrupt many families leading to the continuing destabilization of entire communities.

Acupuncture CAN change the world. Community Acupuncture IS changing the world. For many people, community acupuncture is the difference between acupuncture as an idea and acupuncture as a reality. Between hope and despair. Between life and death. One needle, one treatment, one clinic, one community at a time we as punks together with the people that sit in those used recliners are creating something powerful and mysterious. Powerful in that what we are doing together is positive as well as contagious. Mysterious in that we do not really know where this whole thing is headed.