Bill proposes giving cash to addicts who stop using meth
State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced a bill last week that would give incentives — namely cash — to methamphetamine users who stay clean.
“Meth addiction is a major public health and public safety challenge in San Francisco and in other parts of California,” Wiener said in a prepared statement. “We need to employ every possible tool to help people recover from this powerful addiction.”
Like many communities across the state, methamphetamine use has been generally increasing in recent years in Humboldt County. Since 2010, the county has recorded 111 deaths related to methamphetamine overdoses. The drug also was a factor in more than 50 meth and opioid overdose deaths.
“Drug poisoning/(substance use disorder) deaths involving methamphetamine and/or multiple non-opioid drugs made up approximately half of (overdose)/( substance use disorder) 2018 deaths in Humboldt County,” a report from the county’s Department of Health and Human Services states.
The county continues to have a drug poisoning mortality rate more than twice the rate of the state. In 2017 and 2017, the rate was closer to triple the state rate.
Wiener said incentivizing being clean is a viable tool to make headway in treating addiction-related issues.
Unlike opioid overdoses, which can be reversed using medications such as naloxone, there is no reversal drug for methamphetamine overdoses. Additionally, there is no medication-assisted treatment like there is with opioid addiction.
“Contingency management is an effective and essential tool in treating meth addiction — particularly given the lack of effective medical interventions — and we must expand access to it,” Wiener said. “This is a science-based approach to treating meth addiction,
and it’s time for California to embrace it.”
Wiener’s bill would make the programs accessible to a wide swath of the state by authorizing the services to be reimbursable through Medi-Cal.
Jessica Smith, the executive director of Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction, said the incentivization is something that would work well in Humboldt County.
“In our community, methamphetamine and poly-substance is now surpassing opioid use and overdoses,” she said Monday. “Anything that would help out the community would be a good thing.”
She said HACHR has used incentives in the past and found it made a difference.
“Every year we do a needs-based survey,” she said. “Last year, we offered a $2 incentive to take it. It doubled the participation.”
Smith said methamphetamine use is commonly seen among the population who are homeless.
“A lot of the use we see is related to folks being unhoused,” Smith said. “It is used at night to protect yourself (by staying awake) and keep your items from being stolen.”
“Methamphetamine use is synonymous with rural life (in) America,” she continued. “We not unique. But it is a battle right now. As we see opiate use and overdoses drop, we are still seeing a climb in methamphetamine uses and related overdoses.”