She was paid to stay off drugs. Here’s why this approach could help others. [washingtonpost.org]

By Emefa Addo Agawu, Photo: Tony Luong/The Washington Post/FTWP, The Washington Post, March 31, 2022

When I first crossed paths with Anileah Buswell, she was living with her infant daughter in Nashua, N.H., and trying to stay off meth. And for the first time in many years, she was succeeding.

Buswell, 21, was enrolled in a program with a radically simple premise: Get paid to abstain from drugs. The approach, known as “contingency management,” or CM, has racked up a slew of successes. It has been shown to dramatically reduce people’s smoking during pregnancy and to help decrease binge drinking. It is also highly promising for combating methamphetamine addictions.

The treatment, however, is vastly underused. Buswell is among the relatively small number of Americans involved in a CM program, at a time when methamphetamines are increasingly contributing to the country’s devastating overdose crisis.

[Please click here to read more.]