Can a Rewards System Get People Off Drugs?
The Department of Veterans Affairs has used “contingency management” programs to help people quit stimulants for over a decade.
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While researchers say that “contingency management” programs that use the reward systems in the brain can nudge people away from drug use, the practice remains uncommon in Los Angeles drug treatment culture, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Across the country, laws against paying patients for business under federally funded health programs have inhibited efforts to offer gift cards or other rewards as an incentive for staying off drugs.
Federal officials have carved out exceptions, but such programs have also run up against philosophical objections to providing external rewards for abstinence.
However, strong evidence suggests that such programs can help people stop using meth and other stimulants that can derail and end lives, and proponents argue that the Department of Veterans Affairs has used them to help people quit stimulants for over a decade.
In California, a bill that would have broadly authorized Medi-Cal to cover such incentive programs was vetoed last year by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said it should first be tested under a pilot program.
That pilot, initially scheduled to launch in July, has since been pushed back to this fall, and state officials say that the federal government has “explicitly recognized” that the incentives planned under the program do not violate the federal rules.
