The Seed: History of the Original Acupuncture Detoxification Program at Lincoln Hospital

“The seed holds all the potential of the plant.” Jeffrey Yuen, OMD

It is important to unravel the truths of history that have been hidden or denied Since 1979, the role of the original Lincoln Detox has been corrupted and coopted. The need to make the protocol into a product that could be easily marketed robbed the Lincoln Detox 5 Point of its original intent. Lincoln Detox has been denied its rightful place. Years before the start of the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA), the 5 Point Protocol for heroin and methadone detoxification went through long, arduous growth through collective struggle. The COVID pandemic and other disasters point to the need for community-oriented medical responses, and it is my belief that pertinent lessons can be gleaned from the history of the Lincoln Detox collective. In light of this, I offer this history of the foundation of this protocol to ensure that we have our role in the narrative.

In the 1970s, the South Bronx was like a ravaged war zone: arson sprees by landlords left the area’s residents homeless, while landlords, city government, and media conveniently blamed the youth and gangs for the damage. As a result of the arson and increasing city debt, funding was cut for sanitation, fire stations, and police precincts. South Bronx schools, sanitation, fire stations and health care were dismal. However, it was also an era of increasing community reaction to these genocidal conditions.

Before the beginning of Lincoln Detox, communities had already taken the need for detoxifying addicts into their own hands.

The Nation of Islam was very instrumental in fighting drug and heroin addiction in particular by having homes, clean up houses and sweat out houses all around the country. Here they could take members of the community who were addicted to drugs and help them detox “cold-turkey.” Many of the nationalist and grassroots organizations began to do the same thing.

A lot of brothers coming out of the penitentiary (“cause the penitentiary movement was important”). Ex-cons were not what [they] are today. An excon was an individual who gave character, who established a code of conduct in the community. So, they began to set up houses, cold-turkey houses and the like to help deal with the problem of drug addiction.

So, from the mid ’60s to the ’70s, the ability to fight heroin and other addictions that were being pushed in our community, that ability to do that with the assistance of the liberation formations or organizations became an important material aid to the community

The Young Lords Party took over a church in East Harlem to run a breakfast program for children and distribute clothing. They also occupied Lincoln Hospital twice in 1970: first on July 14th and again on November 6th. The first takeover focused on the genocidal conditions of the hospital and the South Bronx; the second focused on the drug plague and the lack of drug detoxification programs in the Bronx—the borough with the highest rate of drug addiction in New York City. Lincoln Hospital was known as the “butcher shop.”

It was a period when, due to destruction, the South Bronx was like a ravaged war zone. It was an era of arson sprees by the landlords seeking to cash in on insurance policies. Both the landlords and the media blamed youth and gangs of the area for the arson. The burning of residential buildings resulted in a large homeless population. South Bronx schools were among the worst in the city, employment rates and health care were dismal. As a result of the arson and increasing city debt, funding was cut for sanitation, fire stations and police precincts. This is the backdrop in communities of color that the future Lincoln Detox collective acknowledged as acts of chemical genocide or low intensity warfare

Communities of color were beginning to respond to conditions in their neighborhoods. Newly formed African American and Puerto Rican community-based organizations were sprouting all over the city pushing for better services and conditions. Grassroots community and national political movements were aggressively fomenting for the empowerment of their communities.

After the takeover, community volunteers joined members of the Young Lords Party, Black Panther Party, Republic of New Afrika, and in the effort. The Lincoln Hospital Drug Detox program was created, developed, and administered in large part by young people mostly in their 20s. More than 90% of the volunteer staff, which also included former prisoners, were recovered/recovering drug addicts. With the takeover, the city agreed to allow the workers to establish a drug program, but only if they provided methadone to the drug victims. It is important to note that Lincoln Detox never agreed to provide methadone maintenance to the participants, only a 10-day methadone detox The program emphasized political education as key to guiding drug victims to develop a personal, social, and political consciousness about the drug plague and how it victimized them, their families, and communities. Luis Surita (aka Zubair) and Peter Jeffries (aka Atillah Ayubbi) recruited me as a political education instructor to complement the Young Lords cadre.

The objective was to use political awareness as a therapeutic tool in the detoxification process. Capitalism Plus Dope Equals Genocide was written by Michael Cetewayo Tabor, a defendant in the infamous political trial of the Panther 21, which underscored these ideas. Dr. Curtis Powell, also a Panther 21 defendant, a biochemist, exposed the chemical analysis of methadone as a highly addictive drug with potentially serious shortand long-term effects. This was the “therapy” proposed by the US government, while simultaneously there was the massive influx of heroin by the CIA.

The Lincoln Detox Political Education collective exposed the impact of methadone, while at the same time the criminal justice system mandated the use of methadone in order to keep one’s children, hold down jobs, and receive aid from city or state agencies. The program emphasized Political Education as key to guiding drug victims to develop a personal, social and political consciousness about the drug plague.

The Beginning of the Ear Protocol. My Personal Story

While I was a volunteer at Lincoln Detox, my sons were in a car accident, leaving them with brain injuries, paralysis, and loss of speech. My close friend and activist, Yuri Kochiyama, took us to Chinatown. There I witnessed firsthand how acupuncture and moxibustion (an East Asian medical heat therapy) cured the boys. I then had a personal family experience with an acupuncture intervention. I brought this experience, and later an article on Dr. Wen in Hong Kong from the New York Times, to the medical collective for consideration

At Lincoln Detox, all decisions were made collectively—every employee from all the units and volunteers took part in major decisions. Up to this point, the Lincoln Detox program used methadone detoxification, political education on chemical warfare, preventive care, and the development of a healthy lifestyle. Although the treatment approach was successful, we saw the need for an expanded approach to meet the recidivism of recovering addicts. Walter Bosque and I, the workers in charge of treatment, approached the entire workforce for approval of this unknown modality. They eventually gave unanimous support.

At this time there was little written in English about acupuncture. While becoming acquainted with the theories, we picked up books, investigated ear points, and did ear acupressure on each other and patients. The history of China taught us that this science was used in the 17th century during the Opium War when 10% of the population was addicted to opium The exportation of opium from India by the British was a strategy used by this colonial power to force China to open their borders to trade. This was a period when the British market was in decline. This was an obvious parallel to the heroin epidemic in the US where Air America, a CIA operation, smuggled heroin into the US, making millions for the government and funding covert operations

In 1974, the Lincoln Detox acupuncture was formed, and the 5 Point drug detoxification protocol became official. We were doing acupuncture on patients and developing a research protocol prior to getting a research license. We used Medical Doctors to credential the program. These doctors—Steve Levine, Franklin Apfel, Richard Taft, Randall Maxie, John Lichtenstein, Mike Smith, Barbara Zeller and Alan Berkman—and others put their profession and lives on the line to support this innovative program. Although not all of the western MDs were involved in the acupuncture protocol, Franklin Apfel, Richard Taft, Mike Smith and John Lichtenstein studied and practiced it.

Wafia Squire along with Maria Mendoza, Angie Wilson, Ife (Saudia) were clinical counselors to the acupuncture unit. Lincoln Detox non-MD acupuncturists included Rick Murphy, Rick Byrd, Richard Delaney, Walter Bosque, Wafia Squire and me. Wafia Squire was the sole sister who trained in the acupuncture unit, and the only female acupuncturist for the majority of the development at Lincoln Detox ear acupuncture unit. Besides the activist and political approach, the fact that we were committed to not using methadone maintenance put us at cross currents with the Health and Hospital Corporation, the medical establishment, and the pharmaceutical industry. The support of Dr. Richard Taft, the medical director at the time, was key to complying with state and health department regulations in the use of an untrusted Chinese modality by people who were not medical doctors. At this point, methadone programs, some city agencies, and a political group— National Caucus of Labor Committees—were adversaries of the program. Dr. Taft was mysteriously found dead in a storage room at the clinic with a hypodermic needle in his arm. Lincoln Detox staff, knowing that he was not a heroin user, saw this as an assassination Lincoln Detox lawyer, Stanley Cohen, who joined the Bill Kunstler team in defending Assata Shakur, also died mysteriously in 1976 at the beginning of her Turnpike trial. His death was not investigated.

Innovation and Abuse of Power

The innovation at Lincoln Detox was not only to develop the ear acupuncture protocol, but also to help drug addicts and the larger community grapple with the chemical warfare being waged against our communities. It also radicalized the very notion of Community Medicine as one involving the entire life of the person be it housing, probation issues, workers’ rights, welfare rights, police brutality, etc.

The workers were activists promoting the rights of their communities on all fronts. In this activism, Lincoln Detox met obstacles and encountered enemies to their approach to drug abuse, chemical warfare, which they recognized as genocide or low-intensity warfare, and community medicine.

Every drug epidemic has government involvement: diplomatic, military, intelligence, organized crime, international speculators, war profiteers. The heroin epidemic exists in two fundamental realities: 1) deteriorating social conditions, and 2) easy supply of drugs

In the early to mid-1970s, Lincoln Detox became engaged in electoral politics. To this end, the program became part of an alliance of various revolutionary organizations to confront the systemic oppression faced by South Bronx residents and, by extension, all of our communities in NYC. It was in fact a drug victims’ political party, not controlled by the Democratic or Republican machines. It grappled with community issues that maintained folks at the bottom of the ladder. They faced the racism of the Welfare system, aligned with “Gypsy” cab drivers who couldn’t drive downtown, fought for the employment of Black and Puerto Ricans in federally funded construction jobs in the Mafia-controlled construction industry and of course confronted the methadone mandate. Sonny Carson (aka Mwlina Imari Abubadika) joined the movement to demand our community members’ inclusion in construction jobs as one of the many social issues he championed. In uniting the detox program to these fronts, the program gained a tactical level of public exposure; this gave us an advantage of authenticity with the “havenots.” “Healthcare is a Human Right” and “Capitalism Plus Dope Equals Genocide” were principles acting as driving forces behind the alliance of the organizations that became engaged in resisting Rockefeller, Schumer, and Nixon’s “War on Drugs.”

Lincoln Detox was fundamental in resisting the attempt to close most city-run hospitals in our communities. The intentional fire bombings of tenement buildings in our communities of color, and uprooting communities through systematic evictions set the stage for the eventual gentrification. These actions were clearly a violation of human rights to deny in whole or in part people’s access to housing, health care and quality education—all supported by naked force.

Lincoln Detox developed a Prison Support collective to advance social justice among those on parole. The coordinators Wakil Shakur (Tyrone Smith), Juan Gonzalez, George “Little Man” Garcia (head of security), and Sekou Owusu provided the program with the proper image and trust in the community. The program’s lawyer, Stanley Cohen, working with the Prison Support collective, won every legal case concerning abuses of power of the criminal justice system interaction against our patients, their family members, neighbors and friends. He confronted the breadth of these issues that were monumental stressors for addicted heroin users in recovery. The Lincoln Detox Prison Support collective provided court intervention, pretrial advocacy, private investigators, as well as support for politically motivated cases during that era.

The draconian Rockefeller Law gave limited options for fighting the cases. The law exposed this new “tough on crime” campaign adopted as national policy (mayor, vice president, president, and drug czar) as a tool on the “War on Drugs.” This law incarcerated thousands of Black and brown “have-nots,” split up families, took children, and all in all, criminalized our community through chemical warfare and the beginning of gentrification. These were the same actions they would use years later during the crack epidemic, with the same results

A coalition of drug-free programs allied with Lincoln Detox to oppose methadone maintenance became a political lobby to expose police brutality and the forced “War on Drugs.” This strategy/effort made Lincoln Detox a major target of a smear campaign. The political establishment accused the program of dysfunction and corruption. These accusations were dubious at best, but they never questioned the effectiveness of both innovative modalities—detox over methadone maintenance and the introduction of a whole new treatment of ear acupuncture that limited chemical dependency with great success.

There clearly exists objective research that provides background context and narrative to the city’s fiscal crisis, austerity, and the cutting of the city budget—all against the reality of looming bankruptcy. This was the backdrop to gentrification, social inequities, the Rockefeller law and the legal justification of pharmaceutical addiction. The city, state, and federal governments rejected any demand to address the needs of the poor during this critical period. Governor John Rockefeller (of New York State), Mayor Ed Koch (of New York City), Charles Schumer (Chairman of the Board of Estimates) and President Richard Nixon, all had a stake in the war on drugs. They collaborated with the medical and pharmaceutical industries

To activists, any treatment not aimed at the root causes of drug addiction perpetuates the problem rather than solves it. We have grown to be “scientists of the street” in relation to drug addiction. Acupuncture only relieves the physical tensions that promote drug use. The basic social and political realities—such as military, government and big business complicity in drug epidemics—that underlie addiction must be dealt with by other means

Using Political Education in the treatment for drug withdrawal was useful in limiting drug recidivism. This was clearly a novel tool whose utility could not be denied, including the added benefit of having patients become proactive against the deteriorating social conditions that invited destructive habits. The natural evolution from this point was toward collective demand for political accountability to address this reality, not only from a grassroots perspective but also conventional electoral politics (despite the dangers) and political organizations. Ramon Velez, a known poverty pimp, was the strong arm of Puerto Rican Democratic politics in the South Bronx.

In 1975, the Health and Hospital Corp attempted to cut Lincoln Detox funding. However, with action from the program and community support, they were unsuccessful.

So we became victims of counter intelligence not in the classical sense based upon the Hoover documents of stopping the rise of the Black messiah or stopping the development of Black nationalist hate groups in the famous ‘67 document. We became targets because we were intervening in the chemical war process here, which was being dealt with by illegal drugs and was being moved into the phase of legal drugs … . So, acupuncture and Lincoln Detox together was a political and medical threat to the theory of legalized chemical warfare within our community

Political repression and social control are important factors in determining when and where heroin (substitute any drug) is made available. Legal drugs to replace illegal drugs are meant to control people

The Flourishing of Lincoln Detox

After 1974, the 5 Point Protocol brought the program innovations into the limelight. The program became a mecca for people searching for non-pharmaceutical methods to detoxify from drugs. Physicians from the United States, Puerto Rico, Europe and Japan visited Lincoln Detox to observe the program. Many experienced acupuncturists donated time to teaching, treating and supervising work sessions. None of the teachers had experience treating drug addiction, so the Detox Acupuncture team combined the training that they received with their own prior drug abuse experience to develop the Five Point drug abuse treatment protocol—an original and unique approach to resolving the deadly drug plague. The program exposed, explained and created alternatives to this deadly plague. It challenged all conventional therapies and offered drug victims a drug-free modality to regain their lives.

In the period from 1974 to 1978, the program treated more than 1000 patients, helping them become drug-free, and taught dozens of community members a basic understanding of acupuncture. With their commitment to sharing their experience of ear acupuncture and drug abuse, they presented at national and local conferences.

• World Congress of Acupuncture in Montreal Canada, 1974;
• Boston University-sponsored training of six community drug detoxification programs, 1975;
• National Hearing on the Heroin Epidemic, 1976;
• National Conference on Drug Abuse, 1976 and 1977.

We have found the simplified formula for treating withdrawal with certain points. By using formula points for every patient, temporary relief may be obtained, but prolonged improvement only occurs when the points are selected on an individual basis. Among the criteria are symptoms of withdrawal, signs and symptoms of other medical conditions, current mental and physical and social status of client, and visual inspection of different locations.

In 1976, the program received approval for our research protocol. A 20-bed inpatient drug detox unit was approved by the National Drug Council, NY Addiction Agency and Health and Hospital Corporation. We wrote an essay about our protocol, including the 5 ear points for the National Conference on Drug Abuse in 1977. Also in 1977 four of the Auricular Detox specialists, under the supervision of Mario Wexu D.Ac., successfully completed and obtained diplomas as D.Ac. (Canada) from the Quebec Institute of Traditional Acupuncture. Wafia Squire satisfied the Quebec International Association requirements for entry into the Doctoral Program, but for personal reasons had to leave.

Walter Bosque, Richard Delaney, Rick Murphy and I became the first “street scientists.” Although we couldn’t apply for certification in New York State, we were awarded acupuncture licenses in California and were possibly the first nonMD African American and Puerto Rican acupuncturists in the US.

Later in 1977, Lincoln Detox began the first class of the Lincoln Detox School of Acupuncture and Common Sense. The recruitment of student Mark Seem as a translator of acupuncture texts from French to English was of tremendous importance to the development of our skills.

Speaking engagements ultimately led to the development of a strong national coalition of programs against methadone maintenance, victimization by methadone, as well as acupuncture and the need to stand up and take a humanistic approach to drug treatment. This work began when I presented at the founding convention for the National Black Caucus in 1972. There I met Kokayi Patterson, a former victim of heroin and methadone addiction who presented on the current state of drug abuse in the country, the position on methadone, the victimization of the Black community by the police, and drug-free residential treatment instead of incarceration. Ron Clark, Kokayi and I later formed Blacks Against Drugs (BAD) that recruited other programs committed to providing drug treatment to the Black community. These programs, including ones in Detroit, Philadelphia and others, used and promoted acupuncture as a necessary adjunct to treatment that pushed back against chemical warfare.

Sensei Tatsuo Hirano of Los Angeles joined the coalition in 1974 after meeting me and visiting Lincoln Detox. Tatsuo Hirano represented Asian American drug treatment and prison programs: Asian Joint Communications (residential therapeutic program and prison programs in State and Federal BOP), Asian American Hard Core & the Asian American Drug Abuse Program (AADAP). In a joint effort with Lincoln Detox representatives, Sensei Hirano spoke at the National Hearing on Drug Abuse epidemic in Washington, DC in 1976 about drug addiction in the Asian communities, its consequential criminalization, its social impact on families and communities and the programs that organically developed to address, treat, and reorient them back to the community.

Too many community programs, also too many grassroots drug fighters, are denied recognition for their creative and dedicated work

Forced Transition 1978

When Lincoln Detox staff came to work on November 29, 1978, we found hundreds of police encircling the building. In an obvious move to separate key acupuncture staff from each other, staff were reassigned to other hospitals—some as far as Brooklyn. A new administration headed by Dr. Michael Smith was now in charge of Lincoln Detox. Mutulu Shakur and Richard Delaney of the original Acupuncture Collective went on to form the Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America (BAAANA) and, its clinic, the Harlem Institute of Acupuncture.

It is important to remember that this was a period of fiscal crisis for New York City. In the midst of a global financial crisis, the nation, state, and city were in financial decline. In the midst of loss of the manufacturing industry, loss of the middle class to the suburbs, and a federal government that wasn’t willing to make loans, the political and financial sectors were in a quandary as to how to avoid bankruptcy In the 1960s, in light of the national civil rights struggle and the Black power movement, Black and Puerto Rican communities had started to voice and act on empowerment of their communities. Key issues were community antipoverty programs, school decentralization campaigns, demands that new construction projects include Blacks and Puerto Ricans, as well as demands for bilingual education for recently arrived children.

In the 1970s, due to the financial downturn, politicians turned to the age-old strategy–blame the victim. Brooklyn assemblyman Charles Schumer and senator Ed Koch, both ambitious politicians, ran campaigns criminalizing anti-poverty and drug programs and the teachers’ union fought parents and community members in Brownsville Brooklyn on school decentralization. The closing of Lincoln Detox was part of a campaign to contain the empowerment of communities, vilify the consistent and dedicated work of community leaders and force Blacks and Puerto Ricans to submit to drastic cuts in social, health, and education funding.

Lincoln Detox—not wanting to divert their energy and time from treatment, research and promotion of the importance of the Lincoln Detox 5 Point Protocol to drug detoxification—ignored the onslaught. Despite becoming its victims:

• We created a community model which emphasizes the importance of the entire person, their family, their social and political realities as important to successful treatment.
• We created a community model which stresses the importance of the drug victim to understand the collusion of profit from their addiction.
• We created a community model that incorporates the commitment and engagement of the treatment specialist into the ills of the community.
• We created a community model that fosters the continuous research and education, so the program and workers are always at the front of the recovery and sustenance of whatever drug is being used to contain our communities.

In conclusion, I appeal to all of you to maintain the highest degree of integrity and carry forth our principles of healing. Together, we built a foundation of healing for the victims of illegal and pharmaceutical drug dependency. We relied on tried-and-true principles throughout the struggle against what we recognize as “chemical warfare.” Our shared history in this struggle required that we address the social, political, and overall wellness of the individual and community as a whole. Our victories have propelled the principles of us as barefoot doctors into the Western world. I am honored to be mentioned amongst those with such courage who dared to struggle against the pharmaceutical institution and methodologies of Western medicine. We must forge ahead to develop a cadre, including practitioners from the field of psychology, that is prepared to confront the familiar malaise of drug addiction and chemical dependency of the past, from the hills of Afghanistan to the pharmaceutical corporations in New Jersey. Despite over 30 years of incarceration, I still harbor the passion to evoke empathy for the suffering as well as the confidence in knowing that we can have an impact and make a change, as in the beginning. Not only can we confront these maladies, but we can create a style of work that can start a new movement for healing. Our approach has been demonstrated to affect physical changes in the brain that abnormally impact the body’s functions. The objective is to prepare a cadre to take over our innovative approach and then turn it over into the hands of the masses.

Open house at the Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America (BAAANA) clinic in 1979. New Afrikan activists Nehanda Abiodun (extreme left) and Muntu Matsimela (extreme right sitting on rail) and Mutulu Shakur (in doorway to right) and other BAAANA members pictured. Photo from personal collection of Dr. Mutulu Shakur.