E Drug Information

Healthy Snack Ideas

A child might enjoy trying the following foods: fresh fruit; fruit canned in juice or light syrup; small amounts of dried fruits, such as raisins, apple rings or apricots; fresh vegetables, such as baby carrots, cucumber, zucchini or tomatoes; low sugar, whole grain cereal with low fat milk. Foods that are small, round, sticky or hard to chew, such as raisins, whole grapes, hard vegetables, hard chunks of cheese, nuts, seeds and popcorn, can cause choking in children under age 4. These foods are okay for young children with a little preparation, for example, by cutting grapes into small pieces and cooking and cutting up vegetables. Always watch a toddler during meals and snacks.

Offender Relapse

Because addiction is a chronic disease, drug relapses and returns to treatment are common features of the path to recovery, so treatment should extend over a long period of time and across multiple episodes of care. Individuals with the most severe problems can participate in treatment and achieve positive outcomes.

Rewards and Sanctions in Offender Treatment

The systematic application of behavioral management principles that underscore reward and punishment can help individuals reduce drug use and criminal behavior. Rewards and sanctions change behavior when they follow targeted behavior, swiftly and fairly. It is important to recognize and force progress toward abstinent behavior. Rewarding positively toward responsible, behavior is more effective in producing abstinent behavior. Long term positive change is better than punishing negative behavior. Nonmonetary rewards such as social recognition can be as effective as monetary rewards. A graduated range of rewards given for meeting predetermined goals can be an effective strategy.
In recovery treatments in the community, contingency management strategies use incentives or rewards, like vouchers or bus tokens, to reinforce abstinence measured by negative drug tests or to shape progress toward other treatment goals, such as program session attendance or compliance with medication regimens. Contingency management is most effective when the contingent reward closely follows the behavior monitored. Graduated sanctions, which invoke less punitive responses for early and less serious noncompliance and increasingly severe sanctions for more serious or continuing problems, are effective tools in conjunction with drug testing. The effective use of graduated sanctions involves consistent, predictable and clear responses to noncompliant behavior.

Drug Testing

Drug testing can determine when an individual is having difficulties with recovery. The first response to drug use is clinical and detected through urinalysis and results in an increase in treatment intensity or a change to an alternative treatment. This often requires coordination between the criminal justice staff and the treatment provider. A more intensive treatment approach should not be a sanction, but rather a routine progression in healthcare practice when a treatment appears less effective than expected.
Behavioral contracting can employ both rewards and sanctions. A behavioral contract is an explicit agreement between the participant and the treatment provider or criminal justice monitor or among all three. A behavioral contract specifies proscribed behaviors and associated sanctions, as well as positive goals and rewards for success. Behavioral contracting can instill a sense of procedural justice because both the necessary steps toward progress and the sanctions for violating the contract are specific and understood in advance.