Acupuncture In Colorado (Politics)

What do you look for when you look for a licensed acupuncturist, Colorado?

Did you know. . .

Chiropractic Acupuncture?!?!

In Colorado a Chiropractor can practice acupuncture with only 100 hours of training! In reality chiropractors don’t even need that many hours as some "weekend courses" become equivalent to the 100 hours of training required for medical professionals to do acupuncture. With a few case studies required after the weekend course, how does that really equate to 100 hours of training?

This isn't to say that all Chiropractors do acupuncture, but they are allowed to do so with much less training than the 3000 hours we get as acupuncturists. When the licensing laws were passed for acupuncture in the state of Colorado the chiropractic board somehow got the legislators in Denver to agree to a 500 hour requirement for Chiropractors to practice acupuncture.  But ... then it became 100 hours?

It turns out that Denver allowed the chiropractic board to regulate chiropractors for acupuncture. In other words, the chiropractors don't answer to the state, nor the Acupuncture Board in Colorado, to practice acupuncture. Hmmm ... I'm not sure about this.

Apparently the chiropractors thought that 500 hours was too much and they were able to lower the hours to 100. If you think that's bad, just hold on cause it gets so much better...

Medical Acupuncture?!

Along the way, the Colorado legislatures thought that MD's apparently didn't need to have any training to practice acupuncture. Wow. Allopathic Medical Doctors in the state of Colorado can practice acupuncture with zero hours of training!

As Acupuncturists, we know we aren't qualified to do chiropractic or allopathic medicine, so why are they allowed to do what we do with 0-100 hours of training? But when it comes to acupuncture, we are educated in a 4-year graduate program, receive a Masters degree (or Professional certification for a few schools), nationally Board certified and licensed (L.Ac.) in each state we practice in.

Outside of Colorado, there are other practitioners who are given the go ahead to also practice acupuncture with no more than 300 hours of training. It is extremely odd that the Colorado state legislature, along with 46 other state legislatures, thinks that only Acupuncturist need training to practice acupuncture! Everyone else can do it with little or no training and they keep passing more legislation allowing more health care practitioners to practice it. Can you believe that currently, there are only 4 states in the US that protect acupuncturists as the only practitioners to perform acupuncture? Four out of fifty isn't very good ...

Denver is a huge metropolitan city and Boulder, one of THE alternative mecca’s in the United States, resides close by. In fact, Colorado as a whole has some of the highest numbers for alternative medical practitioners. So, I wonder what went on at the level of legislation in Colorado when it came to acupuncture? Aren’t they there to protect the public and to ensure that only well trained, Board certified and licensed practitioners in the field can perform within that field?

What do you think Colorado? Should just anybody be allowed to stick needles in you?