Sorry to open with a rhetorical question. We know it can't but some of us may not know that acupuncture actually induces the body to produce natural opoid pain-killers including enkephalins, endorphins, dynorphins, endomorphins, and nociceptin. This is a powerful and immediate way acupuncture relieves pain. No bad side effects. No addiction.

It should be a sobering to think how a 'science-based medicine' such as opoid drug therapy could result in such an evil like the opoid epidemic. Science is an ideal but it has to be carried out by humans and the practice of medicine is totally a human endeavor. Science is only as good as the people doing or using it.

My own thinking is that acupuncture is not a purely physical medicine. It's more equal parts physical and energetic medicine. Energetic here means there is a realm where we can influence but not yet able to clearly define. So we call it 'Qi'. Yes, we can already say volumes about 'Qi' but it's more than that and that is exactly the power of Chinese medicine: that while we pursue the knowledge, we acknowledge that so much has yet to be revealed. We still know little but this humility will steer us away from disaster.