Written by: Nathaniel Mannor
California has seen a dramatic spike in the number of drug overdoses since the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, jumping from 365 to 537 in San Francisco alone. Combined with every other crisis plaguing California, it seems like there’s no hope for us anymore. However, this may be one battle we can win as a new method for drug rehabilitation is making the rounds.
Contingency Management rewards those in rehabilitation by offering prizes (usually money) whenever they abstain from drug use. This method rewires the brain’s reward system from relying on drugs to accepting monetary benefits to stay sober, using the principles of operant therapy to exhibit desired behaviors within individuals. And soon, California could be the first state to embrace contingency management.
SB 110 allows Medicaid to provide contingency management benefits and encourages more rehabilitation centers to adopt the method. State Senator Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco) sponsored the bill and passed it through both houses of the state legislature. “We need to embrace this proven, effective approach to meth addiction, make it clearly legal and start reimbursing for it so that we can address this health epidemic,” he said.
Additionally, the bill has bipartisan support as Republicans have also signed onto this legislation. “The Republicans love it. I didn’t think they would, but they actually like it because there’s an abstinence component to it: we pay you money and you abstain from using,” Weiner explained.
The only thing keeping the bill from implementation is the dictator-in-chief, Gavin Newsom. If Gavin Newsom signs the bill into law, we can turn the tide in the drug epidemic and start making California the Golden State we know it can be. But if he vetoes this bill, it only proves what we’ve known all along, that Newsom doesn’t care about California, only retaining his power.
Photo from: Shutterstock
