When it comes to treating methamphetamine addiction, the use of behavioral incentives is settled science. Offering financial rewards, like gift cards, to people who demonstrate that they’ve reduced or stopped their meth use, is highly effective: Studies show that contingency management, as it is known, can promote abstinence from drugs, increase utilization of health care services, and even reduce high-risk sexual behavior.
But despite spiking meth overdose rates and the Biden administration’s expressions of support for high-quality addiction treatment, contingency management has failed to gain traction. Instead, it has been held back by politics: namely, a longstanding $75 annual cap for contingency management services funded by select federal programs.
This year, frustration with the Biden administration has spilled into public view, culminating in a failed advocacy effort to raise the cap, and the president’s top domestic policy official appearing to acknowledge that decisions about the government’s drug crisis response are being made amid a highly charged political atmosphere.
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