UK: Anger over NHS plan to give addicts iPods (National Health Service tries rewards scheme)

The Times (U.K.) ^ | July 22, 2007 | Sarah-Kate Templeton

[Stoat]

Anger over NHS plan to give addicts iPods

 

Sarah-Kate Templeton, Health Editor

 

DRUG addicts are to be offered gift vouchers and prizes on the National Health Service under plans by the government’s medicine watchdog to encourage them to stay clean.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) will recommend the system of inducements, which could enable clinics to offer televisions and iPods as prizes, to tackle the burgeoning drugs problem. But patients denied drugs for blindness, Alzheimer’s and lung cancer under Nice rationing are likely to accuse it of wasting public money.

Katherine Murphy, of the Patients Association, said: “Why should these people with self-inflicted problems be given priority over people who have a genuine illness? Some people with genuine disease are being forced to sell their homes for the medicines they need.”

Under the guidelines expected to be published by Nice this week, heroin and cocaine users will be given the financial rewards if they test free of drugs. The scheme is inspired by one already operating successfully in America.

 

The range of financial incentives is likely to include vouchers, which start at £5 but increase in value each time the addict tests negative. Typically, there would be three tests each week and therefore three chances to gain vouchers of increasing value. Drafts of the guidance suggest giving addicts who test free of drugs tickets for a draw to win prizes worth up to £100.

Research by the University of Connecticut found cocaine and methamphetamine users stayed drug free for longer when they had the chance to win prizes such as telephones, stereos, DVD players and televisions. Every time addicts gave a negative drugs test they were given tickets for the draw. They “earned” an increasing number of tickets for every week that they remained drug free.

Those who endorse financial rewards for addicts argue that any money will be recouped because those who stay clean will make fewer demands of the NHS.

[Stoat]

Katherine Murphy, of the Patients Association, said: “Why should these people with self-inflicted problems be given priority over people who have a genuine illness? Some people with genuine disease are being forced to sell their homes for the medicines they need.”

How terribly, dreadfully sad.

[Stoat]

Ipod ping

[Law is not justice but process]

Next year’s headline: “Massive Second-Hand iPod Market Funds Drug Trade: Plaintiffs’ Firms Promise to Hold Apple Accountable”

[Stoat]

Next year’s headline: “Massive Second-Hand iPod Market Funds Drug Trade: Plaintiffs’ Firms Promise to Hold Apple Accountable”

LMAO!

And has Steve Jobs weighed in on this issue?  By donating ipods to the NHS he could take a great burden off the British taxpayer as well as boosting his public Compassion Index.

[WesternPacific]

Material rewards to change behaviors are fine with adolescence, such as M&Ms, but as for adults, rewards tend to be more successful if they are internalized.
if the iPods do not change the behaviors, will they be taken away? More than likely, the iPods will end up in the possession of other individuals or Pawn shops.

[Stoat]

Material rewards to change behaviors are fine with adolescence, such as M&Ms, but as for adults, rewards tend to be more successful if they are internalized.
if the iPods do not change the behaviors, will they be taken away? More than likely, the iPods will end up in the possession of other individuals or Pawn shops.

Agreed on all counts.  It's strange that this supposedly successful American effort that the NHS plan is based upon is not something that most of us Yanks, I daresay, have heard of.  One might think that if such a plan were indeed such a resounding boon that it would have been duplicated all across the land, with a dramatic fall in drug addiction dominating national headlines as well.

 

 

[tcostell]

How do I sign up for this program? Having never been much of a drug user, I’m confident that I can test negative as many times as they are willing to test me.

[ishabibble]

I’m going to send this to Fat Mikey Moore!

Socialized medicine doesn’t work because monumental idiots run it. Third-rate losers who can’t cut it in a competitive workplace always end up in backwater jobs like these people at NHS. These clowns couldn’t find their own worthless backsides with both hands.

What’s next? Alcoholics who are hooked on heroin and meth win the trifecta and get an Iphone? Jacka@@es.

[Stoat]

An insightful comment from a poster at the Times site:

If your 'drug problem' has so small a grip on you that it can be cured by the offer of a free iPod, you haven't got a drug problem. If however, you really do have a drug problem, I guess you could always sell the iPod on eBay and buy more drugs...

Catriona Hallett, London,

 

[xp38]

This Canadian bank has been at the cutting edge. :) http://www.tdcanadatrust.com/

[dfwgator]

I remember a chapter from Rush Limbaugh’s “The Way Things Ought To Be” entitled, “Now We Thank People for Obeying the Law.”

Now we “Reward Them For Obeying the Law.”

[bboop]

I would be fried! And then there are the variables: What if they dry up, win an iPod, and then go back on? Do they get another one if they sober up again? Do they have to give the first one back if they revert? Can they be sober for a year, then revert, but not have to give it back because it’s been a year? What if they sell it? And then they revert because they no longer FEEL GOOD because they won an iPod?

OH THERE ARE SUCH IDIOTS IN THE WORLD, many of them in charge.

[Stoat]

This Canadian bank has been at the cutting edge. :)

LMAO!

"Put your money in our bank and we'll not only give you an iPod but we'll pay you interest on the money you deposit which you've gotten from dealing illegal drugs"

'snicker'

[Stoat]

Now we “Reward Them For Obeying the Law.”

I want to be paid for NOT accelerating the mighty stoatmobile over the speed limit.

This business of "Virtue is it's own reward" is tiresome and not in keeping with the expectation of endless Socialist handouts (of other people's money or iPods).

[Stoat]

I would be fried! And then there are the variables: What if they dry up, win an iPod, and then go back on? Do they get another one if they sober up again? Do they have to give the first one back if they revert? Can they be sober for a year, then revert, but not have to give it back because it’s been a year? What if they sell it? And then they revert because they no longer FEEL GOOD because they won an iPod?

OH THERE ARE SUCH IDIOTS IN THE WORLD, many of them in charge.

Your precision targeting of the ramifications of the issue at hand earns you today's Free Republic Intellectual Sniper Award

Be advised that this award is not redeemable for an iPod and is intended to foster insightful commentary, not the reliance upon Government handouts to do the right thing.

I would be fried! And then there are the variables: What if they dry up, win an iPod, and then go back on? Do they get another one if they sober up again? Do they have to give the first one back if they revert? Can they be sober for a year, then revert, but not have to give it back because it’s been a year? What if they sell it? And then they revert because they no longer FEEL GOOD because they won an iPod?

OH THERE ARE SUCH IDIOTS IN THE WORLD, many of them in charge.

[martin_fierro]

	iPod
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[Stoat]

Thank you for pinging your list and LMAO at the pic!   :-)

[Publius6961]

My option is shoot them.
Direct, effective, guaranteed success, and a lot cheaper.

And it would free up limited public funds for people with diseases over which they have zero control...

Just saying.

[bboop]

I thank you.