When Billy Lemon was trying to quit his meth addiction, he went to a drug treatment program at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation three times a week and urinate into a cup. If you tested negative for methamphetamine, you were paid about $ 7.
As the pandemic has raged, so has the country’s drug epidemic. Health officials have been battling methamphetamine and cocaine abuse, in particular due to the lack of effective treatment for those stimulants.
Hear Lemon’s story and understand how the unconventional California treatment works.
“For someone who hadn’t had legitimate money, without committing serious crimes, that seemed like a great thing,” said Lemon, who was arrested three times for selling methamphetamine before beginning his recovery.
The payments were part of an addiction treatment called contingency management, which offers drug users incentives (money or gift cards) to stay off drugs. At the end of the 12 weeks, after all of his drug tests came back negative for methamphetamine, Lemon received $ 330. To him, it was about more than money. It was said: Good job.
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